JTULISS    m   MEDIEVAL  AHD 
MODERN  HISTORY 

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FEAblKLll]   H.    HEAD 


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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

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GIFT  OF 

SEELEY  W.  MUDD 

and 

GEORGE  I.  COCHRAN     MEYER  ELSASSER 

DR.  JOHN  R.  HAYNES    WILLIAM  L.  HONNOLD 

JAMES  R.  MARTIN         MRS.  JOSEPH  F.  SARTORI 

to  tht 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

SOUTHERN  BRANCH 


JOHN  FISKE 


STUDIES  IN  MEDIEVAL  AND 
MODERN  HISTORY 


]rOR^3m 


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AN   OLD-FASHIONEU  CIDER-MILL. 


Studies  in  Medieval  and 
Modern  History 


BY 

FRANKLIN  H.  HEAD 


Magna  est  Veritas  et  prevalebit 

The  inquiry  of  truth,  which  is  the  love-making  or  wooing  of  it;  the 
knowledge  of  truth,  which  is  the  presence  of  it;  and  the  belief  of  truth, 
which  is  the  enjoying  of  it  —  is  the  sovereign  good  of  human  nature 

— FRANCIS   BACON 


CHICAGO 
PRIVATELY  PRINTED 


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n  \~  c. 


l-^- 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.     Dante's  Boodling,  and  its  Influ- 

j  ENCE  UPON  HIS  WoRK,         .       . 


11.  Some  Methods  of  Browning,  as 
Illustrated  by  the  Poem  of 
Ivan  Ivanovitch,        .     .     .     .     57 

III.  Lines  to  Lake  Geneva,     ...     77 

IV.  Address  Delivered  at  the  Un- 

veiling   OF    the    Haymarket 
Monument,        85 


•H. 


DANTE'S    BOODLING,  AND    ITS    IN- 
FLUENCE   UPON    HIS   WORK 


DANTE'S    BOODLING,  AND    ITS    IN- 
FLUENCE  UPON    HIS    WORK 

In  the  ranks  of  the  great  poets,  three  men 
stand  conspicuous  and  alone.  With  their  heads 
among  the  stars,  to  their  serene  and  lonely 
height  no  others  may  venture  to  climb.  By 
the  most  enduring  and  final  of  tests,  a  constant- 
ly growing  appreciation  of  their  work,  centuries 
after  their  times  and  ages  have  passed  away, 
Homer,  Shakespeare  and  Dante  seem  assured  of 
a  world-embracing  and  undying  fame. 

No  three  men  can  be  named  more  utterly  un- 
like. Each,  in  a  large  measure,  was  the  product 
of  his  age  and  of  his  environment,  acting  upon  a 
genius,  heaven-born,  which  once  perhaps  in  a 
millennium  is  sent  among  men. 

Homer,  whom  Dante  characterizes  as 

"The  monarch  of  sublimest  thought 
Who,  o'er  the  others  like  an  eagle  sails," 
9 


sings  to  us  of  the  far-away  childhood  of  the  race. 
His  men  and  women  are  people  of  simple  mo- 
tives, simple  theories  of  life  and  narrow  experi- 
ences. The  gods  of  the  mountains,  the  streams, 
and  the  forests,  dowered  with  all  human  powers 
and  weaknesses,  were  as  real  as  Helen  or  Aga- 
memnon or  the  white-armed  Nausicaa.  An  un- 
usual dream  was  as  the  voice  of  God,  and  the 
flight  of  a  flock  of  birds  might  change  the  des- 
tiny of  a  nation.  Diplomacy  in  its  modern 
sense  was  unknown,  and  the  thoughts,  motives, 
and  passions  of  the  men  of  his  age  are  more 
open  to  us  than  those  of  our  everyday  neigh- 
bors. 

Shakespeare  gives  us  not  alone  a  graphic  pic- 
ture of  the  age  of  Elizabeth,  but  an  embodiment 
of  all  the  wisdom  which  had  survived  from  all 
the  foregone  ages.  Every  human  passion  found 
in  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  is  to  him  as 
an  open  book.  He  holds  the  mirror  up  to  all 
the  variant  moods  of  nature.  He  is  the  supreme 
poet  of  humanity.  He  is  the  master  of  language, 
which,  to  him,  is  plastic  as  clay  in  the  potter's 
hands.     At  his  bidding,  it  sings  soft  and  sweet 


II 

as  the  harp  of  ^olus,  or  is  marshaled  in  periods 
resonant  as  the  Psalms  of  David,  or  majestic  as 
the  voice  of  the  multitudinous  sea. 

Dante  occupies  a  much  narrower  field.  While 
the  writings  of  Shakespeare  and  Homer  are  lucid 
and  easily  understood,  his  are  pervaded  by  the 
vague,  mysterious,  and  incomprehensible  meta- 
physics and  the  subtle  scholasticisms  of  his  age. 
His  admirers  find  in  many  passages  of  his  writ- 
ings the  double  and  concealed  meanings,  which 
the  Browning  students  of  our  day  find  in  Bor- 
dello. While  for  his  time  he  had  traveled  wide- 
ly and  had  met  the  scholars  and  poets  of  civilized 
Europe,  yet  such  intercourse  seems  in  a  general 
way  to  have  but  little  broadened  his  horizon, 
and  for  him  the  little  commune  of  Florence  was 
his  world.  For  this  reason,  his  general  scheme 
of  the  life  after  death,  as  set  forth  in  the  Divine 
Comedy,  would  not  be  for  a  moment  tolerated 
in  our  days  of  the  geographical  distribution  of 
official  patronage.  To  the  people  of  Florence, 
a  town  no  larger  than  Burlington  or  Milwaukee, 
he  assigns  nearly  all  the  prominent  positions  in 
Hell,  Purgatory,  and  Paradise.     He  preached  the 


12 

gospel  of  immeasurable  and  infinite  hate,  as  well 
as  of  exquisite  and  undying  love.  But  he  illu- 
mines the  pages  of  the  Divine  Comedy  with  the 
white  light  of  perhaps  the  most  exquisite  poetic 
fancy  yet  vouchsafed  to  man.  He  pillories  all 
grades  of  evil-doers  with  a  pen  which  holds 
them  up  to  the  execration  of  men  through  all 
the  ages.  But  amid  all  the  horrors  of  the  In- 
ferno, through  its  chorus  of  hopeless  shrieks  and 
groans  of  never-ending  agony,  through  the  fear- 
ful but  not  hopeless  sorrows  of  Purgatory, 
through  Limbo,  where  without  hope,  they  ever 
live  in  longing,  forever  dying  but  never  dead, 
as  well  as  through  the  shining  abodes  of  the 
blest,  he  walks,  tranquil  and  serene,  and  scatters 
the  flowers  of  an  imagination  at  once  chastened 
and  sublime  through  all  the  stages  of  his  won- 
derful journey.  Amidst  the  vivid  pictures  of  a 
class  of  sinners,  smoking  in  pockets  of  redhot 
rock,  amidst  another  class,  writhing  in  the  em- 
brace of  poisonous  serpents,  biting  and  bitten, 
men  shrinking  into  snakes,  and  snakes  expand- 
ing into  men,  gleams  some  enchanting  sentence, 
brightening  the  scenes  of  immeasurable  horror 


13 

with  that  ideal  light  which  never  was  on  sea  or 
land.  His  outgrown  theology,  everywhere  con- 
spicuous, is  that  of  a  bygone  and  buried  age,  but 
despite  this  perishing  of  what  he  considered  the 
foundation  and  framework  of  his  mighty  drama, 
the  artist  in  this  monarch  in  the  poets'  realm 
still  assures  him  wide  and  loving  audience.  He 
was  the  founder  of  Italian  literature.  He  was 
on  more  familiar  terms  with  Heaven  than  any 
of  his  predecessors,  and  in  an  age  when  the 
problems  of  a  future  life,  by  reason  of  the  priest- 
hood including  the  great  bulk  of  educated  men, 
were  vastly  more  discussed  than  mere  temporali- 
ties, and  in  considering  these  problems,  the 
thought  and  speech  of  men  dwelt  especially  upon 
the  punishments  of  the  future  life:  less  upon  the 
happiness  to  be  gained  than  upon  the  torments 
to  be  escaped  beyond  the  veil,  his  selection  of  a 
theme  and  his  treatment  of  it  were  entirely 
natural. 

Dante  was  one  of  the  early  instances  of  the 
scholar  in  politics.  He  was  a  man  of  wide  and 
profound  learning,  and  lived  in  Florence  at  a 
period  of  wonderful  artistic  and  literary  activ- 


14 

ity.  Poets  sung  in  her  palaces,  and  artists 
garnished  her  cathedrals.  The  politics  of  Flor- 
ence, to  a  student  of  our  day,  is  an  inscrutable 
mystery.  By  a  careful  reading  of  the  various 
histories  of  Florence,  a  larger  stock  of  misin- 
formation can  be  accumulated  than  by  any  other 
method.  Voltaire  says,  "  All  parties  loved  lib- 
erty and  did  their  best  to  destroy  her."  We 
become  familiar  with  the  names  of  the  Guelfs, 
the  Ghibbelines,  the  Bianchi,  and  the  Neri. 
Florence  prided  herself  on  being  an  indepen- 
dent city,  but  recognized  the  right,  either  of  the 
Pope  or  the  German  Emperor,  to  act  with 
authority  as  an  arbitrator  in  case  of  internal 
dissensions.  As  a  general  rule,  the  Guelfs  and 
Bianchi  preferred  the  authority  of  the  Pope, 
while  the  Ghibbelines  and  Neri  chose  that  of 
the  German  Emperor.  Yet,  as  circumstances 
changed,  each  of  these  parties  is  to  be  found  on 
either  side  of  every  possible  political  question. 
In  early  life  Dante  was  a  Guelf,  and  as  such 
rose  to  political  preferment.  His  love  for  Flor- 
ence was  one  of  the  intensest  passions  of  his 
life,  yet  after   his  banishment,   he  united   with 


15 
the  exiled  imperialists  in  urging  the  German 
Emperor  to  attack  and  conquer  the  city.  Their 
clamor  was,  Let  Florence  perish,  let  her  treasures 
be  destroyed,  let  the  Arno  flow  onward  to  the 
sea,  red  with  the  costliest  blood  of  the  land,  so 
that  her  exiles  may  again  dwell  within  her 
walls. 

In  Florence  itself,  both  during,  before,  and 
after  the  age  of  Dante,  there  raged  between  the 
different  parties  an  incessant  strife,  which  seems 
the  absolute  summit  of  unreason.  As  the  bal- 
ance of  power  changed,  the  prominent  members 
of  the  defeated  party  were  occasionally  exe- 
cuted or  exiled,  and  their  property  confiscated. 
From  the  standpoint  of  to-day,  this  perpetual 
warfare  appears  as  causeless  as  would  be  a  war 
between  red-haired  and  black-haired  men,  or 
the  denizens  of  one  side  of  a  street  against 
those  of  the  other  side.  Despite,  however,  this 
endless  turmoil,  upon  one  point  all  were  agreed, 
their  love  for,  and  devotion  to  their  beloved 
Florence.  While  daily  contests  made  the  streets 
perilous  to  the  passer-by,  and  the  houses  of 
leaders  out  of  power  were  torn  down  by  mobs. 


i6 

the  work  upon  the  cathedral  of  San  Giovanni 
went  steadily  on,  and  all  parties  united  in  heap- 
ing honors  upon  the  artists,  architects,  and  men 
of  letters,  whose  names  and  work  make  the  age 
illustrious.  From  contemporaneous  histories,  it 
would  appear  that,  as  soon  as  the  army  of 
skilled  artisans  and  artists  had  completed  their 
twelve-hour  day's  work  upon  the  cathedral  of 
Saint  John,  the  Duomo,  or  the  Campanile,  they 
went,  to  a  man,  upon  the  warpath  against 
whomever  they  met  upon  the  streets,  and  killed 
or  were  killed,  maimed  or  crippled,  until  the 
dawn  of  another  divine  Italian  morning,  when 
those  who  survived  again  resumed  their  labors, 
striving  with  a  love  and  civic  devotion,  which 
knew  no  bounds  or  parallel,  that  Florence  might 
be  the  center  and  soul  of  the  world's  artistic 
life. 

Amid  such  surroundings,  Dante  was  born  and 
educated,  and  became  a  partisan  in  city  politics, 
and  after  having  successfully  managed  certain 
of  its  affairs  of  a  diplomatic  nature,  was  ulti- 
mately made  one  of  the  six  Priors  who  gov- 
erned the  city.     These  six  Priors  had  virtually 


I? 

the  entire  management  of  its  affairs,  even  more 
so  than  the  boards  of  aldermen  of  modern 
times,  since  no  mayor  had  the  veto  power  over 
their  decisions.  He  was  of  the  Guelf  faction, 
and  a  subsequent  election  having  resulted  in  the 
triumph  of  the  Ghibbelines,  he  was  relegated  to 
private  life.  The  story  of  his  banishment  soon 
after  is  familiar  to  all,  and  is  usually  considered 
a  purely  political  act.  Byron's  lines  in  "Childe 
Harold"  represent,  doubtless,  the  usual  opinion 
upon  the  matter. 

*' Ungrateful  Florence!     Dante  sleeps  afar 
Like  Scipio,  buried  bj  the  upbraiding  shore; 
Thy  factions,  in  their  worse  than  civil  war, 
Proscribed  the  bard  whose  name  forevermore 
Their  children's  children  would  in  vain  adore, 
With  the  remorse  of  ages;  and  the  crown. 
Which  Petrarch's  laureate  brow  supremely  wore, 
Upon  a  far  and  foreign  soil  had  grown, 
His  life,  his  fame,  his  grave,  though  rifled,  not  thine 
own. 

And  Santa  Croche  wants  their  mighty  dust, 
Yet  for  this  want  more  noted,  as  of  yore. 
Than  Caesar's  pageant,  shorn  of  Brutus's  bust, 
Did  but  of  Rome's  best  son  remind  her  more: 


i8 

Happier  Ravenna!     On  thj  hoary  shore, 
Fortress  of  falling  empire!  honored  sleeps 
The  immortal  exile.     Arqua,  too,  her  store 
Of  tuneful  relics  proudlv  claims  and  keeps, 
While  Florence  vainly  begs  her  banished  dead  and 
weeps." 

I  have  recently  made  a  careful  study  of  the 
documentary  evidence  in  the  indictment  and 
trial  of  Dante,  resulting  in  his  banishment, 
which  indicates  that  other  than  political  offenses 
were  charged  against  him.  The  painstaking 
efforts  of  the  students  of  Dante  have  unearthed 
many  points  of  interest  in  his  career,  and  the 
quotations  which  follow,  from  the  documents 
bearing  upon  his  exile,  are  taken  from  the  pub- 
lications of  the  German  and  American  Dante 
societies.  The  documents  are  in  a  somewhat 
barbarous  Latin  tongue,  translations  from  which 
I  give.  The  first  decree  is  dated  in  January, 
1302.  Others  beside  Dante  are  embraced  in  its 
provisions.  I  give  the  parts  which  bear  spe- 
cifically upon  the  poet. 

The  decree  is  very  voluminous,  exceeding  in 
legal  verbiage  almost  any  similar   document  of 


19 

our  own  time,  and  condemns  to  fine  and  ban- 
ishment five  persons.  The  first  part  of  the 
decree,  after  the  formal  opening,  imposes  sen- 
tences separately  upon  one  Gherardino,  and 
may,  therefore,  be  omitted.  The  decree  con- 
siderably condensed,  is  as  follows: 

In  the  name  of  the  Lord,  Amen. 
This  is  the  decree  or  condemning  sen- 
tence lately  made  and  promulgated  by 
the  noble  and  powerful  Lord  Cante  de 
Gabrielle  de  Eugebio,  honorable  Podesta 
of  the  City  of  Florence,  upon  the  ex- 
cesses and  crimes  written  below  against 
the  men  and  persons  also  mentioned. 
According  to  the  investigations  of  the 
discreet  and  sapient  Lord  Paulus  de 
Eugebio,  Judge  to  the  Lord  Podesta, 
appointed  to  the  office  over  barratry,  un- 
just extortions  and  illicit  lucre,  and  by 
the  will  and  counsel  of  other  judges  of 
the  same  Podesta,  and  written  down  by 
me,  Bonora  de  Pregio,  notary  and  offi- 
cial to  the  aforesaid  Lord  Podesta,  and 
of  the  Commonwealth  of  Florence  to  the 
same  office  duly  appointed.  In  the  cur- 
rent year  of  our  Lord,  1302,  Roman  In- 
diction  XV,  his  holiness  Pope  Boniface 
VIII,  reigning.  We,  Cante  Podesta,  as 
stated  above,  publish  the  condemning 
sentences  in  manner  following: 


Against  Lord  Palermius  de  Alovetis, 
Dante  Alleghieri, 
Lippo  Bacchus,  and 
Orlanduccio  Orlandi, 
against  whom  has  been  had  the  inquisi- 
tion of  our  own  office  upon  information 
which  has  come  to  our  ears,  and  to  the 
knowledge  of  our  Court,  and  also  through 
public  report,  whether  these  people  were 
in  the  office  of  Prior,  or  otherwise,  prov- 
ing that  these  people  had  been  guilty  of 
bribery,  of  receiving  illicit  lucre  and  of 
exorbitant  extortions  in  money,  or  in 
goods,  either  by  themselves,  or  through 
other  parties,  in  the  matter  of  the  elec- 
tion of  Priors  in  the  Commune  of  Flor- 
ence, or  for  the  passing  of  ordinances, 
or  for  concessions  sought  to  be  obtained, 
and  for  obtaining  from  the  Treasury  of 
Florence,  above  what  is  allowed  by  the 
ordinances  of  the  Commonwealth.  Also 
because  they  had  been  guilty  of  fraud, 
and  of  receiving  bribes  in  affairs  relating 
to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  to  the  arrival  of 
King  Charles,  and  to  the  House  of 
Guelfs,  and  had  plotted  for  the  expul- 
sion from  the  state  of  Pistori  of  those 
called  Nigri,  faithful  followers  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Church,  and  for  the  sever- 
ing of  the  compact  between  said  state 
and  the  Commune  of  Florence. 

Therefore,     Lord     Palermius,     Dante, 
Orlanduccio,    and    Lippo,    having    been 


legally  cited  and  required  through  the 
nuncio  of  the  State  of  Florence,  that 
within  a  certain  time,  now  elapsed,  they 
should  appear  before  us  and  our  Court, 
for  the  purpose  of  defending  and  excul- 
pating themselves  from  the  inquisition 
set  forth,  and  they  not  having  appeared, 
but  the  rather  suffered  themselves  to  be 
put  in  ban  of  the  Commonwealth,  each 
has  been  fined  by  Duccio  Francisci,  Pub- 
lic Finer,  in  the  sum  of  5,000  small  gold 
florins,  which  fine  they  have  incurred  by 
absenting  themselves  contumaciously,  all 
of  which  appears  in  extenso  in  the 
records  of  our  Court. 

Be  it,  therefore,  ordained,  that  each  of 
the  parties  named  being  proved  guilty, 
in  order  that  they  may  receive  the  fruit 
of  the  harvest  sown,  according  to  the 
quality  of  the  seed,  and  may  have  retri- 
bution according  to  their  deserts,  we  do 
by  these  writings  sententially  condemn 
in  5,000  small  gold  florins  by  weight  for 
each,  to  be  paid  to  the  Treasury  of  the 
State  of  Florence,  and  farther  that  they 
restor-e  the  things  illegally  extorted  to 
those  legally  proving  it.  And  that,  if 
they  do  not  pay  the  amounts  within  the 
third  day  from  this  sentence,  the  goods 
of  any  one  not  paying  shall  be  confis- 
cated and  destroyed  and  remain  in  the 
State.  And  if  they  pay  the  aforesaid 
condemnation,   either  themselves   or  by 


22 

Others,  not  the  less  shall  any  one  so  pay- 
ing remain  without  the  Province  of  Tus- 
cany for  two  years.  And  in  order  that 
the  memory  of  the  crimes  of  Palermius, 
Dante,  Lippo  and  Orlanduccio  be  per- 
petual, it  is  decreed  that  their  names  be 
inscribed  in  the  records  of  the  people  of 
Florence  as  forgers,  falsifiers,  barrators 
and  impostors,  and  that  never  hereafter 
can  any  of  them  hold  office  of  trust  or 
receive  any  privileges  from  the  Common- 
wealth of  Florence,  the  fine  being  paid 
or  not.  * 

This  decree  was  made  in  January,  1302.  In 
the  month  of  March  following  another  decree 
issued  from  the  same  Court,  which  is  in  sub- 
stance much  like  the  first,  but  which,  after  re- 
citing that  Dante,  with  others,  had,  upon  suffi- 
cient evidence,  been  found  guilty  of  barratry, 
bribery,  extortions,  and  of  receiving  illicit  lucre, 
and  having  been  fined  and  the  fine  not  having 
been  paid,  and  that  Dante,  with  others,  having 
been  silent  as  to  the  crimes  charged,  and  there- 
fore having  virtually  confessed  his  guilt,  there- 
fore the  Court,  by  additional  decree,  adjudges 
that  should  he  ever  again  appear  within  the  ter- 

*See  Appendix. 


23 

ritory  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Florence,  he 
shall  be  consumed  by  fire  until  he  die.* 

In  the  year  131 1,  nine  years  after  the  first 
sentence,  the  German  Emperor  was  marching 
toward  Italy  with  a  large  army,  and  as  he  had 
been  continually  appealed  to  by  the  different 
warring  factions  in  Florence  to  settle  their  end- 
less quarrels,  he  issued  an  order  that  an  amnesty 
be  granted  to  all  persons  exiled  by  either  party, 
and  the  Florentines,  fearful  of  an  attack  upon 
their  city  in  case  of  disobedience,  granted  par- 
don to  the  most  of  the  exiles,  but  made  an  ex- 
ception in  the  case  of  Dante,  and  some  few 
others  by  name,  on  the  ground  that  their  crimes 
against  the  Commonwealth  were  considered  too 
great  for  condonation. 

In  1315,  thirteen  years  after  the  first  sentence, 
Dante  having  petitioned,  as  often  before,  for  the 
privilege  of  returning  to  the  city,  the  authorities 
issued  another  decree,  in  which  it  was  ordered 
that,  in  view  of  his  many  evil  deeds  against  the 
Commonwealth,  in  case  he  should  ever  return  to 

♦See  Appendix. 


24 

the  city,  he  should  be  at  once  taken  to  the  place 
of  justice  and  there  beheaded. 

This,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain, 
is  the  last  official  utterance  by  the  authorities  of 
Florence,  and,  as  is  well  known,  he  never  re- 
turned to  the  city. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  in  the  first  decree,  it  is 
stated  that  the  evidence  upon  which  the  con- 
viction of  the  crimes  charged  was  based  appears 
in  extenso  upon  the  records  of  the  Court.  Such 
records,  however,  have  never  been  discovered  in 
Florence  by  the  many  Dante  commentators,  and 
only  a  part  of  such  evidence  can  thus  far  be 
found  at  all.  The  only  light  upon  the  detailed 
charges  and  evidence  against  Dante  may  be 
found  in  certain  documents  in  the  Vatican 
library,  and  these  are  evidently  fragmentary. 
As  appears  by  these  papers,  one  of  the  witnesses 
testifying  was  one  Michel  Mol'loni.  His  evi- 
dence in  substance  was  that  he  was  the  proprie- 
tor of  a  wine  store  in  the  district  of  Saint  Peter 
the  Great,  where  Dante  resided;  that  his  wine 
rooms  were  a  place  of  great  resort,  and  among 
the  frequenters   was    Dante;    that  many  of    his 


25 

poorer  patrons  owed  him  money,  which,  with 
his  deeds  of  charity  to  the  poor  upon  Christmas 
and  other  chief  holidays  of  the  Church,  made 
him  a  man  of  wide  influence  in  the  politics  of 
Florence;  that  in  the  year  A.D.  1300,  Dante 
told  him  that  he  had  been  urged  by  his  friends 
to  allow  the  use  of  his  name  as  a  candidate  for 
the  office  of  Prior;  that,  upon  such  urging,  he 
had  a  desire  to  be  chosen  as  one  of  the  six  Priors 
of  Florence,  and  asked  his  (Mol'loni's)  influence 
to  obtain  such  office,  promising  him  a  substan- 
tial reward  in  case  of  his  election;  that  the  wit- 
ness so  used  his  influence,  which,  with  some 
money  furnished  by  Dante  and  the  family  of  his 
wife,  greatly  aided  in  his  election;  that  Dante 
being  thus  elected,  he  (Mol'loni)  called  upon 
him  for  his  promised  reward,  and  Dante  directed 
witness  to  put  in  a  bid  for  certain  quantities  of 
marble  needed  for  the  Cathedral  or  Baptistry  of 
San  Giovanni,  at  a  price  named  by  Dante,  which 
was  nearly  double  the  price  offered  by  other  bid- 
ders; that  Dante  so  managed  matters,  that  wit- 
ness was  awarded  the  contract,  the  lower  bids 
being  rejected  for  informality  or  unsatisfactory 


26 

quality  of  the  marble,  although  the  marble  was 
the  same  offered  by  the  witness;  that  witness 
furnished  such  marble,  making  a  profit  thereon 
of  17,000  florins,  one-half  of  which  he  paid  to 
Dante,  as  by  their  agreement. 

Another  witness  was  Alberti  Ristori,  who  testi- 
fied that  for  many  years  he  had  farmed  the  taxes 
of  six  districts  of  Florence  and  had  been  author- 
ized by  the  various  Boards  of  Priors  to  receive 
for  his  services  and  for  advancing  money  when 
needed,  ten  per  cent,  to  be  collected  by  him 
above  the  amount  assessed  by  the  officers  of  the 
Commonwealth;  that  soon  after  the  election  of 
Dante  to  the  Priorate,  he  sent  for  witness  and 
told  him  that  the  six  districts  of  Florence  here- 
tofore farmed  by  him  were  controlled  by  said 
Dante,  and  he  was  authorized  by  said  Dante  to 
add  fifteen  per  cent  instead  of  ten  per  cent  to 
the  tax  levy,  which  he  did,  thereby  making  an 
extra  profit  of  12,000  florins,  one-half  of  which 
he  gave  to  Dante. 

Another  witness  was  Gherardinum  Diodati, 
who  testified  that  he  was  a  plasterer  by  trade; 
that  he  was  introduced  to  Dante  by  Michel  Mol'- 


27 

loni,  and  that  he  plastered  much  of  the  interior 
of  the  Baptistry  during  the  Priorate  of  Dante; 
that  he  was  to  be  paid  two  florins  per  square 
braccio  for  finished  work,  and  that  he  plastered 
1,200  square  braccia  by  actual  measurement,  but 
that,  by  direction  of  Dante,  he  made  a  claim  for 
2,015  square  braccia,  which  claim  was  audited 
and  allowed  by  said  Dante,  whereby  witness  re- 
ceived 1,630  florins  in  excess  of  his  just  due, 
1,000  florins  of  which  he  gave  Dante  and  Mol'- 
loni,  as  was  arranged  between  them. 

Another  witness  was  Lapum  Ammuniti,  who 
testified  that  he  had  a  contract  for  filling  a  cer- 
tain tract  of  marshy  land  adjoining  the  river 
Arno  to  the  height  of  six  braccia,  to  make  it 
safe  from  floods  and  suitable  for  habitations; 
that  he  was  to  be  paid  one  florin  per  cubic 
braccio  for  such  filling  by  a  contract  made  be- 
fore the  Priorate  of  Dante;  that  his  work  was 
finished  and  the  work  paid  for  during  Dante's 
term  of  office;  that  he  was  entitled  to  be  paid 
for  11,890  cubic  braccia  of  filling,  but  that,  at 
Dante's  request,  he  made  a  claim  for  19,890 
cubic  braccia,  which  was  certified  as  correct  by 


28 

Dante,  whereby  witness  received  an  excess  of 
8,000  florins,  one-half  of  which  he  gave  to  Dante, 
as  had  been  agreed. 

Another  witness  was  Gregorius  Del  Sarto,  who 
testified  that  he  had  a  contract  for  the  excava- 
tion of  the  large  main  sewer  of  the  city  of  Flor- 
ence at  a  certain  price  per  cubic  braccio  for  dirt 
or  gravel,  and  a  certain  price,  six  times  as  great, 
where  the  excavation  was  in  rock;  that  his  work 
was  finished  during  the  Priorate  of  Dante;  that  in 
the  whole  excavation  but  1,100  cubic  braccia  of 
rock-work  was  encountered;  that,  at  the  request 
of  Dante  and  Michel  Mol'loni,  he  presented 
no  claim  for  his  work  until  it  was  entirely  com- 
pleted and  covered  in  so  that  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  measure  the  part  cut  in  the  rock;  that, 
when  this  was  done  at  Dante's  request,  he  made 
a  claim  for  2,900  cubic  braccia  of  rock-work, 
and  received  therefor,  his  claim  having  been 
audited  and  approved  by  Dante,  as  Prior,  the 
sum  of  21,600  florins  in  excess  of  what  was  his 
just  due,  7,000  florins  of  which  was  received  by 
Dante  as  his  share,  as  agreed  between  them — 
and  an  equal  amount  by  Mol'loni. 


29 

Each  of  the  witnesses  quoted  stated,  in  his 
own  justification,  that  Dante  had  told  him  that 
he,  Dante,  was  not  a  rich  man;  that  he  desired 
to  do  great  things  for  Florence,  in  the  way  of 
beautiful  buildings  and  gifts  to  the  poor,  and 
that  this  was  the  method  by  which  he  wished  to 
provide  himself  with  money  for  the  beautifying 
of  his  beloved  Florence. 

The  Vatican  manuscripts  indicate  that  there 
were  four  other  witnesses  examined,  but  the 
manuscripts  are  so  defaced  as  to  be  in  parts 
wholly  illegible  and  no  connected  meaning  can 
be  drawn  from  them.  Detached  words,  how- 
ever, indicate  that,  in  one  case,  the  witness  had 
paid  to  Dante  money  for  a  certain  franchise  as 
to  some  method  of  river  transportation,  and  in 
the  case  of  another  witness,  that  he  had  paid 
money  for  a  monopoly  of  selling  within  the  city 
limits  the  olive  oil  from  the  surrounding  country. 

In  making  up  our  judgment  as  to  the  guilt 
or  innocence  of  Dante,  from  the  decrees  and 
testimony  offered,  we  are  handicapped  by  the 
fact  that  we  have  heard  the  evidence  in  but  one 
side  of  the  case,  but  there  seems  to  be  no  evi- 


3° 
dence  from  contemporaneous  records  that  Dante 
ever  denied  his  guilt  or  endeavored  to  prove  his 
innocence.  Another  fact  seems  to  confirm  the 
presumption  of  his  guilt:  he  lived  in  a  time  of 
marvelous  artistic  and  literary  activity  in  Flor- 
ence. The  people,  while  split  into  factions  and 
constantly  warring  among  themselves,  were  a 
unit  in  their  enthusiastic  devotion  to  their  artists 
and  men  of  letters.  At  the  date  of  Dante's  ban- 
ishment, he  had  written  and  circulated  the 
"  Vita  Nuova,"  a  work  of  promise  rather  than  in 
itself  of  permanent  value,  but  long  before  the 
last  decree  of  131 5,  condemning  him  to  death 
by  beheading  in  the  place  of  justice,  in  case  he 
ever  again  entered  the  city  of  Florence,  he  had 
written  and  circulated  a  large  part  of  the  Divine 
Comedy,  and  was  widely  recognized  as  the 
greatest  of  Italian  poets — as  the  man  who  would 
make  illustrious  his  nation  and  his  age.  When 
this  is  considered  in  connection  with  the  fact 
that  seemingly  every  Florentine  hastened  to  do 
homage  to  all  those  whose  life  and  works  would 
add  to  the  prestige  and  glory  of  Florence,  it 
seems   incredible  that  his    life-long    exile    was 


31 

based  upon  simply  political  reasons.  For  some 
reason,  perhaps  now  accurately  undiscoverable, 
the  poet  seems  to  have  earned  the  execration  of 
the  people  of  his  native  city  of  all  political  par- 
ties, since  each  of  the  principal  factions  was  in 
power  during  his  exile — and  this  makes  possible 
the  belief  that  his  malfeasances  in  office  were  the 
ground  of  his  permanent  exile. 

The  testimony  of  the  witness,  Michel  Mol'- 
loni,  the  proprietor  of  the  wine  house  which  was 
a  center  of  political  influence,  whose  evidence  I 
first  quoted,  and  who  figures  also  in  the  testi- 
mony of  others,  indicates  that  six  hundred  years 
ago,  as  in  our  own  time,  a  potent  factor  in  city 
affairs  was  the  saloon  in  politics.  The  name 
Mol'loni  has  the  appearance  of  an  Italian  name, 
but  accidentally  placing  the  accent  on  the  mid- 
dle syllable  instead  of  the  first  gave  it  such  an 
Hibernian  sound,  that  I  was  tempted  to  an  in- 
vestigation, which  made  clear  the  fact  that  he 
was  a  native  of  the  Emerald  Isle,  originally  bap- 
tized as  Michael  Maloney.  He  was  born  in 
Limerick,  of  poor  but  Irish  parents,  ran  away 
while  young  and  went  to  sea,  and  after  sundry 


32 

vicissitudes  of  fortune,  located  in  Florence,  be- 
came a  power  in  politics,  and  may  have  been 
perhaps  the  inciter  of  Dante's  fall  from  grace. 
A  reference  to  our  own  age  again  emphasizes 
the  maxim,  "  History  repeats  itself." 

II 

Assuming  now  that  Dante  was  guilty  of  the 
crimes  charged  against  him,  it  would  seem  a 
pertinent  inquiry:  in  what  way  the  entire  change, 
which  came  over  his  fortunes  after  his  banishment, 
affected  his  literary  career.  He  was  early  in- 
clined to  the  profession  of  letters,  the  "Vita 
Nuova "  being  issued  in  his  twenty-fifth  year. 
It  is  of  value  as  illustrating  the  early  period  of 
his  mental  development,  and  the  starting  point 
of  his  subsequent  growth,  but  it  is  the  immature 
work  of  an  unpracticed  hand.  Had  he  written 
nothing  more,  it  would  have  scarcely  survived 
his  century,  as  it  has  little  in  matter  or  manner 
to  distinguish  it  from  the  short-lived  work  of 
his  contemporaries.  It  combines  much  of  gen- 
uine  sentiment  with    much    mystical    follv;    it 


33 

dilates  upon  love  in  the  chivalric  and  conven- 
tional mode  of  his  day;  is  pathetic  in  its  youth- 
ful foolishness  and  poetic,  dreamy  extravagances. 
It  illustrates  that  the  passion  of  love,  while  soft- 
ening the  heart,  sometimes  similarly  affects  the 
brain. 

Prior  to  his  banishment,  Dante  appears  to 
have  been  a  genial,  companionable  and  scholarly 
gentleman,  according  to  the  standpoint  of  his 
period,  with  literary  tendencies  in  accord  with 
the  tastes  and  standards  of  an  artificial  and 
Quixotic  age.  He  was  popular  with  his  towns- 
men, as  is  evidenced  by  his  elevation  to  munici- 
pal office,  and  to  his  occasional  selection  for 
work  of  a  diplomatic  character  among  the  neigh- 
boring petty  commonwealths.  He  seems  to 
have  felt  that  his  world  was  a  pleasant  one  in 
which  to  live;  that  his  surroundings  were  to  his 
mind,  and  to  have  looked  forward  to  a  life  of 
dignified  ease,  at  peace  with  all  men.  No  trace 
of  his  vivid  descriptive  power,  or  the  intense 
bitterness  toward  those  differing  with  himself  is 
found  in  the  period  before  his  exile.  In  a  way, 
for  all  his  life  he  was  a  poetic  dreamer,  in  early 


34 

life  his  dreams  were  of  the  Vita  Nuova,  in  his  later 
life,  the  fearsome  visions  of  the  Sacred  Comedy. 
The  beginning  of  his  exile  is  the  beginning 
of  his  great  career.  He  traveled  over  many- 
lands,  studying  for  the  work  of  his  life,  not  alone 
the  fierce  and  evil  passions  and  acts  of  men, 
with  the  poet's  sweetness  turned  to  fiery  scorn- 
ing, but,  too,  with  the  poet's  eye  and  the  poet's 
power,  seeing  among  all  the  scenes  of  his  wan- 
dering the  beauties  of  nature.  In  the  Apen- 
nines he  recognized  the  rafters  of  Italy.  He 
saw  the  beavers'  ways  in  the  streams  of  Germany. 
He  studied  the  shape  of  the  bubbles  on  the  boil- 
ing tar,  for  the  calking  of  ships,  in  the  arsenals 
of  Venice,  and  reproduced  them  in  one  of  the 
fissures  of  Malebolge,  where  a  certain  class  of 
sinners  were  immersed  in  boiling  pitch,  while 
the  devils  tore  their  bodies  if  any  part  appeared 
above  the  surface.  He  heard  the  music  of  the 
spheres  as  he  watched  the  stars  in  their  stately 
courses.  He  heard  the  leaves  of  the  trees, 
played  upon  by  the  wandering  breezes,  sing 
their  accompaniment  to  the  songs  of  birds. 
Nothing  great  or  small  escaped  his  intense  and 


35 

concentrated  vision,  and  his  garnerings  are  pre- 
served in  the  Divine  Comedy,  "safe  against  the 
wash  and  wear  of  the  ages."  Trifling  incidents 
in  the  lives  of  insignificant  persons,  passed  out 
of  human  importance  for  six  centuries,  are  alive 
and  cannot  perish,  from  their  mere  momentary 
connection  with  the  thought  of  this  one  man. 

As  his  period  of  exile  lengthened  he  left  behind 
him,  with  one  exception — the  supremacy  of  the 
passion  of  human  love — the  ideals  of  his  dream- 
ing youth,  and  girded  himself  for  his  mighty 
and  slowly-maturing  plan  of  unfolding  to  men 
the  methods  of  the  Power  in  whose  hands  are 
the  ^issues  of  life  and  death  and  immortality. 
Had  his  life  been  one  of  tranquil  ease,  had  he 
never  experienced  toward  himself  what  he 
deemed  the  base  ingratitude  and  evil  passions 
of  men,  the  Divine  Comedy  might  never  have 
seen  the  light.  The  work  to  which  he  had 
vowed  himself  in  his  dreaming  youth,  that  he 
would  say  of  Beatrice  what  had  never  been  said 
of  any  woman,  might  have  given  us  Beatrice 
among  the  angels  in  Paradise,  without  the  cantos 
of  Hell  and  Purgatory. 


36 

While  it  is  true  that  Dante,  although  nine- 
teen years  an  exile,  was  ever  homesick  and  long- 
ing for  his  beloved  Florence,  yet  his  travels  and 
his  mingling  with  men,  in  certain  lines,  greatly 
broadened  his  views.  In  early  life  he  was  natu- 
rally a  Roman  Catholic,  and  so  remained,  yet  he 
was  perhaps  the  first  advocate  for  the  absolute 
separation  of  the  Church  and  State.  He  wished 
to  see  Italy  consolidated  into  one  powerful  king- 
dom, with  its  capitol  at  Rome,  and  the  Pope, 
with  his  residence  also  at  Rome,  simply  the 
head  of  the  Church,  a  change  which  it  required 
nearly  six  centuries  to  bring  about.  He  also 
came  to  recognize  the  wickedness  of  sundry 
Popes  in  their  management  of  temporal  affairs, 
and  located  them  in  some  of  the  least  desirable 
circles  of  Hell.  He  also  disputed  the  dogma 
then  held  almost  universally,  that  all  pagans 
were  doomed  to  eternal  death,  even  if  living 
blameless  lives  and  in  total  ignorance  of  the 
very  existence  of  Christ.  His  utterances  on  this 
point  are  far  in  advance  of  his  age.  He  says,  as 
translated  by  Longfellow: 


37 

"  For  saidst  thou,  Born  a  man  is  on  the  shore 
Of  Indus,  and  is  none  who  there  can  speak 
Of  Christ,  nor  who  can  read  nor  who  can  write: 
And  all  his  inclinations  and  his  actions 
Are  good  as  far  as  Human  reason  sees, 
Without  a  sin  in  life  or  in  discourse. 
He  dieth  unbaptized  and  without  faith: 
Where  is  this  justice  that  condemneth  him? 
Where  is  his  fault  if  he  doth  not  believe? 
Now  who  art  thou  that  on  the  bench  would  sit 
In  judgment  at  a  thousand  miles  away, 
With  the  short  vision  of  a  single  span?" 

Again  he  says: 

"  But  look  thou — many  crying  are  Christ,  Christ, 
Who  at  the  judgment  shall  be  far  less  near 
To  him  than  some  shall  be  who  know  not  Christ. 
Such  Christians  shall  the  Ethiop  condemn, 
When  the  two  companies  shall  be  divided, 
The  one  forever  rich,  the  other  poor." 

These  and  other  passages  indicate  that  upon 
the  poet's  vision  had  dawned  the  sublime  con- 
viction that  in  the  Father's  house  are  many 
mansions. 

At  about  the  age  of  twenty-six  years  he  was 
married  to  Gemma  Donati,  a  woman  of  social 
position  superior  to  his  own,  and  of  whom  his 


38 

contemporaries  have  to  say  naught  but  words  of 
kindness  and  praise.  The  marriage  was  appar- 
ently a  happy  one  and  seven  children  were  born 
to  them.  From  the  date  of  the  decree  which 
banished  him  and  confiscated  his  property  in 
Florence,  we  know  of  no  communication  between 
him  and  his  loyal  wife.  If  from  his  position  as 
Prior  he  had  harvested  illicit  gains,  he  must 
have  carried  them  away,  as  Boccaccio  and  others 
of  her  contemporaries  speak  of  the  poverty  of 
his  wife  and  her  weary  struggles  to  support  her- 
self and  her  seven  children,  but  amid  all,  with 
no  thoughts  or  words  save  of  love  for  her  absent 
lord.  By  her  life  and  work  she  seems  to  have 
said  to  him: 

"  Go  forth,  go  upward  and  onward,  my 
great,  noble  and  heroic  husband;  from 
the  trifles  which  escaped  confiscation, 
from  occasional  slight  help  from  my  fam- 
ily, and  from  what  I  can  earn  by  taking 
in  washing,  I  will  manage  to  care  for  my- 
self and  our  seven  children,  while  you, 
with  your  head  among  the  stars,  with 
your  mighty  poetic  spirit  communing 
with  itself  of  the  problems  of  human  des- 


39 

tiny,  shall  picture  to  all  coming  ages  the 
divine  beauty,  the  womanly  perfections, 
the  angelic  graces,  and  the  celestial  bles- 
sedness of  Beatrice,  wearing  upon  her 
bosom  the  pure  white  rose  of  a  blameless 
life,  and  dwelling  and  ruling  forever  in 
the  very  city  of  our  God." 

From  what  has  been  said,  we  may  fairly  con- 
clude, therefore,  that  to  the  boodling  of  Dante 
and  his  consequent  exile,  we  owe  his  master- 
piece of  poetic  effort,  one  of  the  greatest  heir- 
looms of  mankind.  ;He  embarked  upon  the 
work  with  two  ideas  especially  before  him:  one 
to  set  forth  the  punishments  of  all  the  wicked, 
and  in  this  class  he  places  all  opposing  himself, 
and  the  other,  to  say  of  Beatrice,  the  ideal  of 
his  dreaming  youth,  whose  name  he  would  make 
to  dwell  lovingly  and  forever  on  the  tongues  of 
men,  what  had  never  yet  been  said  of  any  woman. 
Upon  the  point  first  had  in  view  by  Dante,  his 
ideas  of  punishment  for  sin  were  substantially 
those  of  the  theology  of  his  age.  He  classified 
sinners  with  a  minuteness  never  before  attempted, 
and    sought,  doubtless  honestly,  to    make   the 


40 

punishment  fit  the  crime.  In  the  character  of 
these  punishments,  he  shows  a  fiendish  brutality, 
unequaled  among  any  savages  of  whom  history 
makes  mention,  and  this,  too,  as  he  explains, 
upon  the  behest  of  the  God  of  infinite  mercy, 
and  in  evidence  of  His  love  for  man.  Over 
the  portals  of  Hell  he  inscribes  the  words, 

"Justice  the  founder  of  my  fabric  moved. 
To  rear  me  was  the  task  of  power  divine, 
Supremest  wisdom  and  primeval  love." 

He  was  a  magnificent  hater.  He  rejoices  in 
the  endless  torments  of  his  enemies.  He  asks 
Virgil,  his  guide,  to  have  Philip  Argenti  plunged 
into  the  loathsome  current  of  the  Styx,  and 
when  it  is  done,  thanks  God  for  the  pleasure  of 
the  view,  and  tells  the  wretched  sufferer  of  his 
rejoicings  at  his  torment.  He  sees  Bocca's  head 
partly  projecting  above  the  ice  in  which  he  is 
frozen,  and  kicks  it  and  tears  handfuls  of  hair 
from  his  bleeding  scalp,  and  glories  in  the  act. 
He  rejoices  when  he  sees  certain  sinners  bitten 
and  strangled  by  poisonous  serpents,  and  others 
torn  and  bleeding  from  the  bites  of  ferocious 
dogs,   and  still   others  permanently    frozen    or 


41 

roasted,  by  which  their  agonies  are  promoted. 
He  is  jubilant  at  the  decrees  which  condemn 
uncounted  myriads  forever 

"To  bathe  in  fiery  floods,  or  to  reside 
In  thrilling  regions  of  thick-ribbed  ice." 

But  amid  all  these  terrific  pictures,  the  artist 
and  poet  is  ever  present  and  supreme.  His 
views  of  the  horrors  of  the  Inferno  are  set  forth 
in  lines  and  phrases  of  transcendent  and  eternal 
beauty,  and  its  blackest  depths  illumined  by  the 
clear  light  of  his  exquisite  fancy.  Even,  too,  in 
the  Inferno,  is  seen  one  trace  of  his  reverence 
for  the  passion  of  human  love,  told  in  the  digres- 
sion embodying  the  story  of  Francesca  De 
Rimini,  whom,  with    her   lover,    Paoli,  he    sees 

"  Imprisoned  in  the  viewless  wind, 
And  blown  with  restless  violence  round  about 
The  pendant  globe." 

His  sense  of  justice  would  not  allow  him  to 
overlook  or  excuse  her  crime,  and  she  is  placed 
in  hopeless  sorrow,  but  in  one  of  the  highest  and 
most  endurable  circles  of  the  Inferno  and  in 
the  constant  society  of  the  only  man  she  ever 
loved.     How  her  piteous  story  biased  Dante  is 


42 

seen  when  he  puts  approvingly  on  her  lips  the 
final  word,  as  to  herself,  her  lover,  and  her  hus- 
band who  had  murdered  both: 

"Love  brought  us  to  one  death — Caina  waits 
The  soul  who  spilt  our  life;" 

Caina  being  one  of  the  lower  and  most  terrible 
circles  of  the  infernal  pit.  This  story  is  told  by 
the  poet  in  words  of  such  exquisite  beauty  and 
tenderness  that  it  is  known  of  all  the  world,  and 
gentle  eyes  have  never  ceased  to  weep  over  the 
piteous  tragedy  of  Francesca's  life  and  love  and 
death. 

There  is  one  notable  difference  between  Dante 
and  the  two  other  supreme  poets.  Homer  no- 
where in  his  writings  reveals  his  personality. 
His  style  is  his  own,  but  of  his  tastes,  his  sur- 
roundings and  his  loves  or  hates,  we  know 
nothing.  Outside  the  sonnets,  the  same  is  true 
of  Shakespeare.  But  Dante  is  everywhere  in 
evidence.  Scarcely  a  page  of  the  Divine  Com- 
edy but  gives  us  a  view  of  some  phase  of  his 
unique  personality.  His  exile  had  filled  him 
with  bitterness  toward  those  who  opposed  him; 
he  had  reflected  deeply  upon  the  woes  of  Flor- 


43 

ence  and  Italy;  upon  the  mismanagement  of 
the  State;  upon  the  corruption  and  weakness  of 
its  public  men,  and  as  he  recognized  himself 
the  sole  official  topographer  of  the  Medieval 
Hell,  he  meted  out  justice,  according  to  his  own 
standard,  to  all  weak  and  wicked  men.  Upon 
his  personal  enemies  he  wreaked  exemplary 
vengeance.  In  one  notable  instance  he  did  not 
even  await  the  death  of  the  sinner  before  locat- 
ing him  in  what  he  considered  his  proper  envi- 
ronment. Pope  Boniface  VIII  was  believed  by 
Dante  to  have  been  in  some  measure  responsible 
for  his  exile,  as  well  as  an  embezzler  of  the  funds 
of  the  Church,  and  Dante  provided  a  place  for 
his  suitable  reception  as  soon  as  he  should  pass 
without  this  earthly  life.  A  pocket  was  awaiting 
him,  about  the  size  of  his  person,  in  the  redhot 
rock,  and  here  he  was  to  stand  upon  his  head 
through  the  eternal  ages,  his  blazing  feet  pro- 
jecting above  the  pocket  and  aiding  to  make 
luminous  the  lurid  atmosphere  of  Hell. 

Dante's  Hell  is  not  an  original  creation,  but  a 
composite  picture,  gathered  from  the  theologies 
of  all  ages  and  races,  largely  from  ancient  Jew- 


44 

ish  traditions,  from  the  pagan  poets  and  from 
the  legends  of  Germany.  Its  fiends  and  devils, 
its  inhabitants,  its  climate  and  its  somber  hor- 
rors, are  reduced  to  order  by  the  poet,  who  sup- 
plemented from  his  own  teeming  brain  whatever 
it  had  before  lacked  in  temperature  and  variety 
of  torment. 

The  second  point  had  in  mind  by  the  poet, 
after  having  provided  for  the  punishment  of  the 
wicked  and  his  personal  vengeance  on  his  ene- 
mies, may  be  styled  the  apotheosis  of  Beatrice, 
and  through  her,  of  womankind.  His  work  in 
this  field  may  also,  with  much  plausibility,  be 
claimed  as  a  result  of  his  illicit  lucre  and  conse- 
quent banishment.  Beatrice  died  when  the  poet 
was  about  twenty-four  years  of  age.  Soon  after 
her  death,  he  was  married  and  seems  to  have 
lived  happily  with  his  family,  to  have  prospered 
in  his  ambitions,  and  to  have  led  a  contented 
life  for  nearly  a  dozen  years.  His  early  vow  to 
say  great  words  of  Beatrice  seems  to  have  been 
forgotten.  But  in  his  lonely  exile,  his  mind 
reverted  with  more  than  its  youthful  devotion  to 
his  early  love.     While  he  had  never  touched  her 


45 
hand,  or  heard  her  voice,  she  was  to  him  hence- 
forth the  guide  of  his  feet  and  the  light  of  his 
life.  She  alone  survived  from  the  bright  illu- 
sions of  his  dreaming  youth.  When  all  things 
else  were  powerless  to  console,  this  ideal  of  his 
youth  and  this  memory  of  his  maturity  arose  be- 
fore him  to  cheer  and  strengthen  for  the  work 
of  his  life.  He  endows  her  with  beauty,  purity, 
strength,  and  all  the  attributes  of  an  ideal  and 
perfect  womanhood,  magnified  and  emphasized 
by  her  abode  in  the  heavenly  life.  He  places 
her  in  the  Rose  of  the  Blessed,  and  with  the 
most  exalted  ones  of  the  heavenly  state,  having 
power  over  angels  and  archangels,  ruling  by  the 
love  which  casts  out  fear,  yet  evermore  a  woman. 
Knowing  all  things,  she  realized  Dante's  love; 
at  the  beginning  of  his  marvelous  journey,  she 
gives  him  Virgil  as  his  guide,  and  thus  guards 
him  through  the  horrors  of  Hell  and  Purgatory, 
triumphant  over  fiends  and  devils  by  her  made 
powerless  to  do  him  harm.  At  the  gateway  of 
Paradise  she  meets  him,  and  together  they  view 
the  immeasurable  splendors  of  the  abode  of  the 
blest.     He  places    her  far   above   any    man  in 


46 

power  and  dignity  in  Paradise,  thus  avowing 
his  belief  in  the  higher  purity  and  spirituality  of 
woman  and  making  all  womankind  his  debtor. 
He  quotes  as  descriptive  of  her  from  the  Wis- 
dom of  Solomon:  "She  is  the  brightness  of 
the  eternal  light,  the  unspotted  mirror  of  the 
majesty  of  God."  Lowell,  in  referring  to 
Dante's  characterization  of  Beatrice,  says:  "She 
shifts  from  a  woman,  real,  loved  and  lost,  to  a 
gracious  exhalation  of  ,all  that  is  fairest  in 
womanhood  or  most  divine  in  the  soul  of  man." 
Well  and  nobly  has  Dante  redeemed  his  vow, 
recorded  in  the  closing  pages  of  the  Vita  Nuova, 
that  he  would  say  of  Beatrice  what  had  never  yet 
been  said  of  any  woman. 

Ill 

To  the  past  we  must  look  for  guidance  and 
for  hope  as  to  the  present  and  the  future. 
Dante,  young,  honest,  pure,  and  at  home,  was 
the  writer  of  love  sonnets,  graceful,  conven- 
tional, trite,  and  of  but  modest  merit.  Dante, 
the  boodler  and  exile,  was  the  author  of  the  one 


47 
poem  of  supreme  merit  between  Homer  and 
Shakespeare — the  one  great  master  for  two 
thousand  years.  Can  we  derive  from  this  fact 
aught  of  consolation  and  of  hope  for  American 
letters?  Can  we  see  from  what  surroundings, 
from  what  experiences,  from  what  fiery  trials 
shall  be  born  our  man  who  shall  rank  unchal- 
lenged among  the  immortals?  Who  shall  sing 
of  our  age  with  the  simplicity  and  power  of 
Homer,  with  the  sweetness  and  fierce  sublimity  of 
Dante,  with  the  broad  humanity  of  Shakespeare? 
Of  one  factor  we  are  assured:  our  boodlers 
are  unsurpassed.  Some,  too,  have  been  tempo- 
rarily exiled,  but  thus  far  without  results  in  the 
world  of  literary  art.  Tweed,  in  comparison  with 
whose  boodling  Dante  was  as  a  little  child,  was 
temporarily  an  exile,  but  the  comity  of  nations 
returned  him  to  his  native  land,  and  he  died 
with  his  songs  unsung,  with  the  epic  of  the  cen- 
tury unwritten.  Chicago,  the  city  of  our  love 
and  pride,  has  banished  some  few  of  her  bood- 
lers to  Joliet,  but  thus  far  no  poetic  melodies 
have  been  wafted  back  to  us  from  the  city  of 
limestone  and  the  Drainage  Canal. 


48 

Our  assortment  of  unbanished  boodlers  is 
large  and  varied,  but  who  of  thera  has  given  to 
us  the  preliminary  dainty  volumes  of  love  and 
pathetic  longing,  as  the  Vita  Nuova  in  the  case 
of  Dante,  which  might  be  as  stepping-stones  to 
higher  things?  Who  has  seen  a  volume,  "Bu- 
colics of  Chickens  and  Turkeys,"  by  Powers?  or 
"  Lyrics  of  Tunnels  and  the  Levee,"  by  Hop- 
kins? or  "Ballads  of  Railroad  Upholding,"  by 
Madden?  or  "Madrigals  of  the  Franchise,"  by 
Cullerton?  or  "Dewdrops  and  Bubbles  from  the 
Bath  House,"  by  Coughlin?  or  "Poems  of  Pas- 
sion," by  Yerkes? 

But  we  live  not  as  those  without  hope.  We 
are  young.     Art  is  long. 


APPENDIX 

The  opening  sentences  of  the  decree  of  Janu- 
ary 27,  1302,  are  as  follows  : 

"  In  nomine  Domini,  amen. 

Hec  sunt  condempnationes  sive  condempnationum 
sententie,  facte  late  et  promulgate  per  nobilem  et 
potentem  militem  dominum  Cantem  de  Gabriellibus 
de  Eugubio,  honorabilem  Potestatem  civitatis  Flor- 
entie,  super  infrascriptis  excessibus  et  delictis  contra 
infrascriptos  homines  et  personas.  Sub  examine 
sapientis  et  discreti  viri  domini  Paul!  de  Eugubio, 
ludicis  ipsius  domini  Potestatis  ad  offitlum  super 
baratteriis,  iniquis  extorsionibus  et  lucris  illicitis 
deputati.  Et  de  voluntate  et  consilio  aliorum  ludi- 
cum  eiusdem  domini  Potestatis.  Et  scripte  per  me 
Bonoram  de  Pregio,  prefati  domini  Potestatis 
notarium  et  ofRtialem  et  Communis  Florentie,  ad 
idem  offitium  deputatum.  Currentibus  annis  Domini 
millesimo  ccc  ij,  indictione  xv,  tempore  sanctissimi 
patris  domini  Bonifatii  pape  octavi."     *     *     * 


After   a  voluminous  recital   the   decree  con- 
cludes as  follows  : 

49 


5° 

"Qui  Dominus  Palmerius 

DANTE 

Orlanduccius  et 

Lippus 
citati  et  requisiti  fuerunt  legiptime,  per  nuntiutn 
Communis  Florentie,  ut  certo  termino,  iam  elapso, 
coram  nobis  et  nostra  curia  comparere  deberent  ac 
venire,  ipsi  et  quilibet  ipsorum,  ad  parendum  man- 
datis  nostris,  et  ad  se  defendendum  et  excusandum 
ab  inquisitione  premissa:  et  non  venerunt,  sed  potius 
fuerunt  passi  se  in  bapno  poni  Communis  Florentie 
de  libris  quinque  milibus  florenorum  parvorum  pro 
quolibet,  per  Duccium  Francisci  publicum  bampni- 
torem  Communis  eiusdem;  in  quod  incurrerunt  se 
contumaciter  absentando,  prout  de  predictis  omnibus 
in  actis  nostre  Curie  plenius  continetur. 

"  Idcirco  ipsos  dominum  Palmerium,  DANTE, 
Orlanduccium  et  Lippum,  et  ipsorum  quemlibet,  ut 
sate  messis  iuxta  qualitatem  seminis  fructum  per- 
cipiant,  et  iuxta  merita  commissa  per  ipsos  dignis 
meritorum  retributionibus  munerentur,  propter  ip- 
sorum contumaciam  habitos  pro  confessis,  secundum 
forman  iuris,  Statutorum  Communis  et  Populi  civita- 
tis  Florentie,  Ordinamentorum  lustitte,  Reforma- 
tionum,  et  ex  vigore  nostri  arbitrii,  in  libris  quinque 
milibus  florenorum  parvorum  pro  quolibet,  dandis  et 
solvendis  Camerariis  Communis  Florentie  recipienti- 
bus  pro  ipso  Communi;  et  quod  restituant  extorta 
inlicite  probantibus  illud  legiptime;  et  quod  si  non 
solverint  condempnationem  infra  tertiam  diem,  a  die 
sententie  computandam,  omnia  bona  talis  non  sol- 
ventis  publicentur  vastentur  et  destruantur,  et  vastata 
et  destructa  remaneant  in  Communi;  et  si  solverint 


51 

condempnationem  predictam,  ipsi  vel  ipsorum  aliquis 
talis  solvens  nicchilominus  stare  debeat  extra  provin- 
ciam  Tuscie  ad  confines  duobus  annis;  et  ut  predic- 
torum  domini  Palmerii,  Dante,  Lippi  et  Orlanduccii 
perpetua  fiat  memoria,  nomina  eorum  scribantur  in 
Statutis  Populi,  et  tamquam  falsarii  etbarattarii  nullo 
tempore  possint  habere  aliquod  oflStium  vel  bene- 
fitium  pro  Communi,  vel  a  Communi,  Florentie,  in 
civitate  comitatu  vel  districtu  vel  alibi,  sive  condemp- 
nationem solverint  sive  non;  in  hiis  scriptis  sententia- 
liter  condempnamus.  Computato  bampno  in  con- 
dempnatione  presenti."     *     *     * 

Decree  of  January  27,  1302.  From  the  Libro  del 
Chiodo.  See  Del  Lungo,  DelV  esilio  di  Dante,  pp. 
97-103.  (DANTE  SOCIETY.  Tenth  annual  report. 
May  19,  1891.  Cambridge:  University  Press.  1891. 
p.  48.) 

The  second  decree  being  much  shorter  than 
the  first,  is  here  given  in  full  : 

"  In  nomine  Domini,  amen. 

Hec  est  quedam  condempnatio,  sive  condempna- 
tionis  sententia,  facta  lata  et  promulgata  per  nobilem 
et  potentem  militem  dominum  Cantem  de  Gabrielli- 
bus  de  Eugubio,  honorabilem  Potestatem  Civitatis 
Florentie,  contra  infrascriptos  homines  et  personas. 
Sub  examine  sapientis  et  discreti  viri  domini  Pauli  de 
Eugubio,  ludicis  ad  offitium  inquirendi  et  procedendi 
contra  committentes  barattarias  et  lucra  illicitadepu- 
tati.  Et  scripta  per  me  Bonoram  de  Pregio,  eiusdem 
domini  Potestatis  et  Communis  Florentie  notarium, 
ad  idem  offilium   deputatum.     In  anno  Domini  mil- 


52 

lesimo  trecentesimo  secundo  a  nativitate,  tempore 
domini  Bonifatii  pape  viij,  indictione  XV. 

"  Nos  Cante  Potestas  predictus  infrascriptam  con- 
dempnationis  sententiam  damus  et  proferimus  in 
hunc  modum. 

Dominum  Palmerium  de  Altovitis. 

Lippum  Becche. 

DANTEM  ALLIGHIERII. 

Orlanduccium  Orlandi. 

Contra  quos  processum  est  per  inquisitionem  ex 
nostro  offitio  et  curie  nostre  factam  super  eo  et  ex  eo, 
quod  ad  aures  nostras  et  ipsius  curie  nostre  prevenit, 
fama  publica  precedente,  quod  cum  ipsi  et  eorum 
quilibet,  nomine  et  occasione  barattarium,  iniquarum 
extorsionum  et  illicitorum  lucrorum  fuerint  con- 
dempnati,  et  in  ipsis  condempnationibus  docetur 
apertius,  condempnationes  easdem  ipsi,  vel  eorum 
aliquis,  termino  assignato  non  solverint.  Qui  omnes 
et  singuli  per  numptium  Communis  Florentie  citati 
et  requisiti  fuerunt  legiptime,  ut  certo  termino,  iam 
elapso,  mandatis  nostris  parituri  venire  deberent,  et 
se  a  premissa  inquisitione  protinus  excusarent.  Qui 
non  venientes  per  Clarum  Clarissimi  publicum  bamp- 
nitorem  poni  se  in  bampno  Communis  Florentie  sub- 
stulerunt:  in  quod  incurrentes  eosdem  assentatio 
contumacia  innodavit,  ut  hec  omnia  nostre  curie 
latius  acta  tenent.  Ipsos  et  ipsorum  quemlibet,  ideo 
habitos  ex  ipsorum  contumacia  pro  confessis,  secun- 
dum iura,  Statuta  et  ordinamenta  Communis  et 
Populi  civitatis  Florentie,  Ordinamenta  lustitie,  et  ex 
vigore  nostri  arbitrii,  et  omni  modo  et  iure  quibus 
melius  possumus,  ut  si  quis  predictorum  ullo  tem- 
pore in  fortiam  dicti  Communis  pervenerit,  talis  per- 


53 

veniens  igne  comburatur  sic  quod  moriatur,  in  hiis 
scriptis  sententialiter  condempnamus. 

"  Lata  pronumptiata  et  promulgata  f  uit  dicta  con- 
dempnationis  sententia  per  dominum  Cantem  Potes- 
tatem  predictum  pro  tribunali  sedentem  in  Consilio 
general!  Communis  Florentie,  et  lecta  per  me  Bon- 
oram  notarium  supradictum,  sub  anno  tempore  et 
indictione  predictis,  die  decimo  mensis  martii,  pre- 
sentibus  testibus  ser  Massaio  de  Eugubio  et  ser  Ber- 
ardo  de  Camerino  notario  dicti  domini  Protestatis,  et 
pluribus  aliis  in  eodem  Consilio  existentibus." 

Decree  of  March  lo,  1302.  From  the  Libra  del 
Chiodo.  See  Del  Lungo,  DeW  esilio  di  Dante,  pp. 
104-106.)  (DANTE  SOCIETY.  Tenth  annual  report. 
May  19,  1891.  Cambridge:  University  Press.  1891. 
P-  52.) 


SOME  METHODS  OF  BROWNING, 
AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  POEM 
OF    IVAN    IVANOVITCH 


SOME  METHODS  OF  BROWNING, 
AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  POEM 
OF  IVAN    IVANOVITCH 

No  person  at  all  familiar  with  the  poetry  of 
our  time  can  question  the  right  of  Robert 
Browning  to  be  enrolled  upon  the  list  of  the 
Great  Masters.  Some  of  his  shorter  poems, 
thickly  inwrought  with  exquisite  fancies,  are  as 
full  of  rhythmical  melody,  and  poetic  beauty 
as  any  in  our  language.  Had  he  published 
nothing  more  than  the  gems,  "Rabbi  Ben 
Ezra,"  "Saul,"  and  "Prospice,"  his  fame  would 
have  been  unquestioned  and  secure. 

I  have,  however,  been  prejudiced  somewhat 
against  Browning  from  the  very  fact  that  he  has 
written  poems  of  such  rare  and  transparent 
beauty,  and  that  having  done  this,  he  has  yet 
written  vastly  more,  the  meaning  of  which  no 
one  can  discover.  Were  all  his  writings  of  this 
57 


58 

latter  class,  we  would  be  obliged  to  accept  them 
as  the  method  in  which  his  mind  worked,  and 
the  question  would  then  be,  as  suggested  by  the 
elder  Weller  to  his  son  Samuel  regarding  mar- 
riage, whether  it  were  worth  while  to  go  through 
so  much  to  learn  so  little,  as  we  must  in  the 
study  of  his  more  incomprehensible  works.  But 
the  fact  that  he  has  written  in  such  a  lucid  and 
beautiful  style,  it  has  seemed  to  me,  renders  him 
without  excuse  for  writing  in  any  other.  Many 
of  the  inhabitants  of  England  and  America 
have  something  else  to  do  than  to  study  Brown- 
ing, but  taking  into  account  his  dense  and  in- 
comprehensible style  and  methods,  for  one  who 
proposes  to  understand  him  life  is  too  short  to 
accomplish  anything  else. 

In  the  study  of  many  of  his  alleged  poems, 
his  disciples  must  plunge  into  a  vast  bank  of 
fog,  where  they  wander  about  like  ghosts,  seek- 
ing for  light  and  finding  none,  hearing  the 
voices  of  each  other,  the  sighing  of  the  winds, 
the  barking  of  dogs,  the  murmur  of  falling 
waters,  and  the  occasional  resonant  tones  of  a 
great  organ   echoing  vaguely  through  the  dark- 


59 
ness,  and  each  disciple  attaching  to   the  faint 
and  confused  sounds   and   echoes,  and  the  rare 
gleams,  not  of  light,  but  of  a  lesser  darkness,  a 
meaning  of  his  own. 

From  some  of  my  most  valued  friends,  how- 
ever, who  are  enthusiastic  seekers  after  the 
occult  beauties  of  Browning,  invisible  to  the 
hoi polloi,  but  revealed  at  times  to  the  inner  cir- 
cle of  the  elect,  I  learn  that  my  impressions  are 
altogether  wrong,  and  that  the  reason  why  some 
of  the  poems  of  Browning  are  more  obscure 
than  others  is  owing  to  his  wonderful  faculty 
and  power  of  concentration. 

A  great  mathematician,  like  La  Place  or  New- 
ton, is  not  usually  a  good  teacher,  because,  in 
the  rapid  working  of  his  mind,  he  skips  over 
various  intermediate  steps  or  processes,  which, 
to  the  common  mind,  are  necessary  in  order  to 
reach  and  grasp  his  conclusion.  In  the  same 
way,  Browning  condenses  into  a  line  or  two, 
what  it  might  take  the  ordinary  poet  a  page  to 
express.  In  this  process  of  concentration  a 
certain  amount  of  clearness  and  simplicity  is 
lost,   and  the    intermediate  steps  by  which  his 


6o 

conclusions  are  reached  must  be  wrought  out  by 
patient  study. 

Many  of  us  have  probably  seen,  in  the  coun- 
try, in  the  days  of  our  youth,  an  old-fashioned 
cider  mill.  The  apples  were  ground  into  a 
reservoir,  above  which  was  a  large  screw.  This 
screw,  being  turned  by  a  long  lever,  slowly 
forced  down  a  cover  upon  the  contents  of  the 
reservoir.  In  this  way  the  cider  would  gradu- 
ally be  squeezed  out  of  the  pulpy  mass;  at  first 
coming  out  quite  freely,  afterward  more  and 
more  slowly  as  the  bottom  of  the  reservoir  was 
approached,  until,  finally,  its  flow  would  stop 
altogether  and  nothing  be  left  in  the  reservoir, 
except  the  skins,  hulls,  and  seeds  of  the  apples, 
substantially  devoid  of  any  moisture.  I  have 
used  this  somewhat  rude,  but  familiar,  simile  to 
illustrate  the  mental  processes  of  Browning  in 
the  production  of  certain  of  his  poems.  By 
the  testimony  of  his  admirers,  the  mind  of  this 
Master  of  sublimest  song  is  originally  full  of 
the  most  beautiful  imagery,  of  melody,  rhythm, 
and    all    things   essential    to    the    evolution    of 


6i 

poetry  of  the  highest  class;  poems  which  would 
rank  with  those  in  which 

"  Sweetest  Shakespeare,  Fancy's  child, 
Utters  his  native  wood  notes  wild." 

This  material  is  luminous  from  the  flames  of  a 
chastened  fancy  and  dominated  by  a  sovereign 
imagination.  While  in  this  condition,  he  writes 
poems  like  "The  Lost  Leader,"  "  Childe  Ro- 
land," "  One  Word  More,"  and  "  Evelyn  Hope." 
But,  appreciating  that  such  poetry  is  too  diffuse 
to  be  thoroughly  artistic,  he  seizes  the  lever  and 
gives  the  concentrating  screw  a  turn  or  two. 
This  squeezes  out  of  the  mass  fancy  and  imagi- 
nation, which  are  the  most  evanescent  and  most 
easily  parted  with.  In  this  condition  he  pro- 
duces poems  like  "  Ivan  Ivanovitch,"  devoid  of 
fancy,  but  readily  comprehended,  and  possess- 
ing a  certain  amount  of  poetic  imagery  and 
power.  Not  satisfied  with  the  amount  of  con- 
centration thus  arrived  at,  another  turn  is  given 
to  the  lever,  and  the  poetic  element  is  entirely 
squeezed  out.  In  this  condition  he  gives  us 
"The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  certain  portions  of 


62 

"The  Red  Cotton  Night  Cap  Country,"  and 
other  works,  which  will  readily  be  recalled,  con- 
taining much  psychological  research  and  dys- 
peptic power,  but  devoid  of  any  of  the  essen- 
tial elements  of  true  poetry.  Even  this  amount 
of  concentration,  however,  is  not  always  satis- 
factory, and  still  another  turn  is  given  to  the 
lever,  which  results  in  driving  all  sense  out  of 
the  crude  material  and  leaving  simply  a  gram- 
matically arranged  and  incongruous  mass  of 
words.  A  piece  cut  from  this  residuum  is  labeled 
"Sordello,"  and  published,  to  the  endless  mysti- 
fication of  humanity.  This  is  emphatically  the 
piece  which  passeth  all  understanding. 

|By  the  aid  of  the  simile  I  have  used,  the  writ- 
ings of  Browning  may  be  divided  into  four 
classes:  first  those  poems  of  true  feeling,  fanci- 
ful, melodious,  and  all  animate  with  poetic  har- 
mony and  beauty;  second,  those  from  which  the 
beauty,  fancy  and  imagination  have  been  elimi- 
nated; third,  those  from  which  the  poetry  has 
disappeared;  and  fourth,  those  from  which  all 
beauty,  fancy,  melody,  poetry  and  sense  have 
departed.     The    poem    of    "Ivan    Ivanovitch," 


63 
which  I  have  chosen  to  illustrate  some  of  the 
methods  of  Browning's  work,  belongs,  as  before 
stated,  in  the  second  class. 

Inasmuch  as  my  readers  may  not  have  recently 
seen  the  poem  of  "  Ivan  Ivanovitch,"  I  will  give 
a  brief  synopsis  of  the  story.  Ivan  is  a  carpen- 
ter, a  man  of  sturdy  independence  and  good 
character,  who  has  among  his  friends  one  Dmitri, 
also  a  carpenter,  who  has  a  family  consisting  of 
a  wife  and  three  children.  Dmitri  has  been 
from  home  with  his  wife  and  children  for  some 
weeks  in  a  village  about  a  day's  journey  from 
the  hamlet  where  both  reside,  the  road  between 
the  two  places  being  mostly  through  an  unbroken 
wilderness.  He  is  about  starting  for  home  with 
his  family,  when  something  occurs  to  prevent 
his  returning  with  them;  so  his  wife  and  the 
three  children  set  out  alone  in  a  sledge  drawn 
by  one  horse,  and  when  passing  through  the 
forest  are  followed  by  a  pack  of  wolves.  The 
horse,  and  in  the  sledge  the  wife  only,  in  an 
utterly  exhausted  condition,  reach  the  village, 
and  are  surrounded  by  the  villagers,  one  of 
whom  is  Ivan  Ivanovitch,  to  whom  the  wife  pro- 


64 

ceeds  to  tell  her  story,  which  is  in  substance, 
that  a  pack  of  wolves,  frantic  with  hunger  and 
thirsty  for  blood,  pursued  them  through  the  for- 
est; they  gained  upon  the  horse  and  finally 
jumped  upon  the  sleigh,  carrying  off  first  one 
of  the  children,  which  stayed  the  pack  for  a 
time;  but  that  they  still  continued  the  pursuit, 
carrying  off  another  of  the  children,  and  finally, 
in  the  same  way,  the  babe,  the  last.  The  wife 
represents  that  she  fought  the  wolves  desperately, 
but  was  unable  to  prevent  them  from  seizing 
the  children.  Something  in  her  manner  of 
reporting  the  tragedy,  however;  her  unfavorable 
comments  upon  the  character  of  the  children 
first  carried  off,  and  some  expressions  used  in 
her  excitement  when  telling  the  story,  satisfy 
Ivan  that  she  flung  off  her  children  one  by  one 
to  the  wolves  in  order  to  save  her  own  life.  He 
raises  his  carpenter's  axe  after  she  has  finished 
her  story,  and,  without  making  any  comment 
upon  it,  deliberately  severs  her  head  from  her 
body,  wipes  the  blood  from  his  axe  and  walks 
to  his  own  home.  This  incident  causes  great 
excitement  among   the  villagers,  who  at   once 


6s 

assemble  in  mass  meeting  to  discuss  the  situation. 
The  legal  authorities  present  consider  the  act  of 
Ivan  as  murder,  and  that  his  life  is  forfeited, 
but  the  priest  of  the  village,  a  man  nearly  one 
hundred  years  of  age,  and  who  has  baptized 
and  married  all  the  villagers,  and  is  in  a  way 
the  pope  of  the  community,  expresses  his  own 
views  that  Ivan  in  his  act  has  simply  been  the 
messenger  of  God;  that  motherhood  is  the  high- 
est function  and  attribute  of  woman;  that  the  wife 
should  have  unhesitatingly  sacrificed  her  own  life 
to  save  the  lives  of  her  children;  that,  as  she  has 
thus  been  false  to  her  higher  nature,  she  is  a  mon- 
ster and  unworthy  to  live,  and  that  the  act  of  Ivan 
was  an  act  of  the  highest  justice  and  worthy  of  all 
commendation.  The  villagers  concur  in  this 
sentiment  and  repair  to  Ivan's  house,  expecting; 
to  find  him  in  terror  of  a  summary  judgment,, 
instead  of  which  he  is  carving  some  toys  for  the 
amusement  of  his  children,  and  upon  hearing 
the  verdict  of  the  community,  simply  responds 
with  the  statement  that  it  could  not  be  other- 
wise. 

It  seems  to  be  a  peculiarity   of  most   of  the 


66 

great  poets  and  dramatists,  that  they  are  not  crea- 
tive in  the  direction  of  inventing  their  plots. 
They  usually  take  a  story  or  legend,  which  is 
in  some  measure  familiar  to  their  prospective 
readers,  and  make  this  the  thread  upon  which 
to  hang  their  thick-coming  imaginings  and  fan- 
cies. Shakespeare  and  the  dramatists  of  his 
time  took  the  plots  of  many  of  their  plays  from 
the  Chronicles  of  Holinshed  and  Froissart,  or 
from  collections  of  a  similar  character  made  by 
the  French  and  Italians,  and  the  great  dramatic 
work  of  Goethe  simply  embodied  in  poetic  form 
the  legend  of  Faust,  already  familiar  to  the  Ger- 
man people.  Browning  is  no  exception  to  this 
general  rule.  It  is  often  an  interesting  study  to 
compare  a  finished  poem  with  the  story  upon 
which  it  is  based,  and  to  see  what  changes  in  the 
story  itself,  its  denouement  and  incidents,  are 
made  by  the  poet  to  cause  it  to  conform  to  his 
ideas  of  poetic  or  dramatic  art.  By  noting  these 
modifications,  we  can  often  get  some  idea  of  the 
processes  in  the  mental  workshops  of  these  great 
Masters.  I  shall  not  attempt  at  this  time  to  give 
an  elaborate  analysis  of  the  poem  of  "  Ivan  Ivano- 


67 

vitch  "  from  any  particular  standpoint,  but  will 
content  myself  with  giving  from  Holinshed's 
Chronicles  the  original  story  of  "  Ivan  Ivano- 
vitch,"  that  we  may  note  the  variations  and 
departures  therefrom  by  Mr.  Browning  in  his 
treatment  of  the  theme.  In  Holinshed  the 
story  is  told  as  happening  in  the  mountainous 
district  of  Wales,  which,  as  we  know,  were  wild 
and  sparsely  settled  regions  to  a  later  date  than 
almost  any  other  part  of  the  British  Islands. 
The  story  is  told  of  one  Owen  Ap  Jones,  that  is, 
he  plays  the  part  assigned  to  Ivan  Ivanovitch  in 
Browning's  story,  and  the  woman  who  sacrifices 
her  children  to  save  her  own  life  is  the  wife  of 
Llewellyn  Griffiths.  The  surname  of  Jones  is 
an  unusual  one,  less  than  one-half  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Wales  bearing  this  name,  which  fact 
renders  it  probable  that  the  Jones  of  the  Holin- 
shed legend  was  an  ancestor  of  the  Rev.  Jenkin 
Lloyd  Jones,  the  President  of  the  Chicago 
Browning  Club,  and  a  diligent  and  enthusiastic 
student  of  the  Master.  Holinshed's  narrative  is 
as  follows,  the  spelling  being  modernized: 
In  the  winter    of  this  same   year  the   good 


68 

King  Rufus,  after  this  sore  and  cruel  battle, 
desiring  to  mightily  augment  his  puissance 
before  that  the  armies  should  again  encounter 
together,  did  sojourn  for  certain  weeks  upon  the 
shores  of  the  bay  anigh  the  city  of  Carnarvon. 
And  upon  a  certain  day,  when  he  did  attend  to 
meet  the  heralds  in  the  market-place,  was  brought 
before  him  Owen  Ap  Jones  by  the  sheriff  and  a 
great  concourse  of  people,  some  of  whom  did 
loudly  clamor  for  his  life,  while  many  others 
walked  speechless  in  great  incertitude.  Where- 
upon the  King  did  demand  the  cause  of  their 
greediness  for  blood,  and  to  know  of  the  sin 
wherewith  Owen  Ap  Jones  was  charged,  to  which 
the  sheriff  did  reply  in  this  wise: 

"Most  honored  Majesty,  Llewellyn  Griffiths 
had  a  wife  and  children  four,  who  were  journey- 
ing from  Cardigan,  where  they  had  kinfolk, 
and  were  riding  upon  two  asses  through 
the  forest  upon  the  mountain  hard  by.  The 
wife  and  two  callow  children  were  upon  one 
ass,  which  was  old  and  very  kindly,  and  the 
two  boys  of  larger  growth  were  upon  a  young 
ass,  indued  with  much  speed  and  spirit.     Sud- 


69 

denly  from  the  dark  forest  came  fierce  wolves  in 
great  number,  which  did  pursue  the  beasts  with 
speed  and  much  outcry.  This  day,  at  the  hour 
of  three,  came  into  the  town  the  wife  alone 
upon  the  young  and  spirited  ass,  and  did  weep 
and  wail  without  ceasing  that  her  children  had 
been  devoured  by  the  savage  beasts;  wherefore 
Owen  Ap  Jones,  he  being  of  kin  to  her  husband 
and  his  loving  friend,  did  seek  of  her  the  story 
of  her  dire  calamity.  Thereupon  related  she 
that,  because  her  first-born  son  was  brave  and 
unwisely  bold,  when  the  wolves  did  press  upon 
them,  he  did  unmount  from  the  ass  and  attacked 
them  with  his  boar  spear;  but  in  vain,  for  incon- 
tinently was  he  devoured.  At  which  sudden 
chance,  his  brother  foolishly  and  recklessly  ad- 
ventured after  him,  and  likewise  perished  mis- 
erably. For  a  little  space  the  wolves  were  thus 
stayed,  fighting  and  feasting  fiendishly  over  the 
brave  first-born  lads.  Then  took  she  the  nimble 
ass  and  her  two  babes,  and  with  an  infinite  deal  of 
speed  fled  before  the  ravening  fiends,  but  still 
they  hasted  sharply  upon  her,  and  the  foremost 
wolf  pitilessly  snatched  from  her  arms  one,  and 


70 

anon  the  other  babe,  whereby  her  bereavement 
was  greater  than  she  could  bear,  and  she  wailed 
sorely  and  said,  '  Owen  Ap  Jones,  my  husband 
his  friend,  gladly  would  I  die  and  be  at  rest 
rather  than  meeting  loved  Llewellyn  weeping 
for  our  children  perished  miserably.'  Then  up 
spake  Owen  Ap  Jones,  '  Woman,  why  sendest 
thou  thy  first-begotten  children  to  perish  un- 
timely?' To  which  she:  'I  did  it  not.  More- 
over, they  ceaselessly  quarreled  and  tried  me 
grievously,  and  dearer  to  me  were  my  loving 
babes.'  Then  again  said  Owen,  'Woman,  why 
gavest  thou  these  babes  to  the  gaunt  wolves  that 
thine  own  life  might  not  be  forfeit?'  To  which 
she:  *I  did  it  not.  Furthermore,  here  standeth 
the  priest,  who  will  bear  witness  for  me.  By 
him  was  I  wedded  to  Llewellyn  my  spouse,  and 
before  him  made  I  my  marriage  vows,  that  I 
would  be  a  true  and  loyal  wife,  and  that,  leaving 
all  others,  I  would  cleave  to  Llewellyn  alone 
until  grim  death  should  take  me  to  his  arms. 
How  could  I  cleave  to  Llewellyn  if  the  fierce 
beasts  devoured  my  body?'  Then  Owen  Ap 
Jones  bared  his  head  of  its  wolfskin  gear,  and 


71 

bowing  down,  he  said,  '  It  is  as  I  divined.  The 
fear  of  God  is  upon  me,  and  I  must  do  his 
behest.'  Then  quickly  raised  he  his  woodman's 
axe,  and  with  one  mighty  blow  he  cleaved  the 
woman's  head  in  twain." 

Thus  the  sheriff,  and  for  a  brief  space  the 
King  spake  not,  and  then  he  said,  "Sheriff,  thou 
art  wise  in  the  wisdom  which  pertaineth  to  the 
law,  what  sayest  thou?"  and  the  sheriff  answered, 
"  Owen  Ap  Jones  his  hands  are  red  with  blood. 
His  life  is  forfeit  to  the  King;  let  him  be  hanged 
upon  an  oaken  tree,  or,  manacled,  labor  until 
death  in  the  copper  mines  of  Carnarvon." 
Then  said  the  King,  "What  sayest  thou,  O 
Priest?"  and  the  priest  answered,  "The  man  is  a 
blasphemer  and  stained  with  sin;  to  the  anoint- 
ed priest  alone  it  is  to  act  as  the  vicegerant 
of  God.  Whoso  sheds  man's  blood,  by  man 
shall  his  blood  be  shed."  Then  the  King  took 
in  his  arms  a  shepherd's  little  child,  and  said, 
"My  little  one,  what  sayest  thou?"  and  the 
child  answered,  "  My  mother  would  not  give  me 
to  the  hungry  wolves." 

Then  up  spoke  the   King  in  a  loud   voice: 


72 

"Oh,  blind  leaders  of  men,  it  is  as  of  old,  that 
wisdom  Cometh  from  the  lips  of  sucklings  and 
of  babes.  Know  you  not  that  to  woman  it  is 
given  to  bear  and  to  rear  children  for  her  hus- 
band and  the  realm;  that  not  one  of  the  she 
wolves  of  whom  this  woman  spake  betimes  but 
would  die  for  her  whelps,  and  that  Owen  but 
cut  down  a  witch  and  a  devil,  who  should  no 
longer  cumber  the  earth?  Owen  Ap  Jones,  thou 
art  a  just  man  and  my  brother.  Leave  thy 
woodman's  axe,  and  take  this  spear  and  bull's 
hide  shield.  Henceforth  thou  art  the  captain  of 
a  hundred  men  and  shalt  have  forsooth  broad 
acres  of  the  lands,  of  which  anon  I  will  despoil 
mine  enemies." 

Thus  Holinshed. 

We  observe  that,  in  a  general  way,  Browning 
has  adhered  to  the  legend  as  told  by  Holinshed, 
although  he  has  transferred  the  scene  to  Russia, 
where  such  an  incident  would  to-day  seem  less 
improbable  than  elsewhere. 

In  comparing  the  story  as  told  by  Browning 
with  the  legend,  we  note  three  characteristics  of 
the  poet,  which  are  illustrated  by  his  method  of 


73 
telling  the  story;  his  republicanism,  his  dramatic 
instinct,  and  his  habit  of  passing  over  the  inter- 
mediate steps  in  reaching  a  conclusion.  Holin- 
shed,  whose  chronicles  are  largely  the  doings  of 
kings,  nobles,  and  warrior  knights,  so  disposes 
his  facts  as  to  make  King  Rufus  the  central  fig- 
ure, and  to  make  conspicuous  his  sagacity, 
wisdom,  and  justice;  but  Browning's  sturdy 
democracy  is  illustrated  by  his  suppression  of 
the  monarch  altogether,  and  by  his  bringing  to 
the  front  the  heroism  and  instinctive  justice  of 
the  common  people.  Our  admiration  goes  out 
to  the  lowly  carpenter  and  the  humble  priest. 
Again,  Browning  is  a  born  dramatist.  The  most 
dramatic  portion  of  the  story  is  perhaps  the 
long-drawn  agony  of  the  flight  from  the  wolves; 
the  alternation  of  hopes  and  fears,  as  one  after 
another  of  the  children  perish,  thus  delaying 
the  pack  and  awakening  anew,  again  and  again, 
the  vain  hope  of  escaping  with  the  rest.  In 
Holinshed,  this  portion  of  the  story  is  told  in  a 
few  graphic  words,  but  Browning  expands  and 
makes  much  of  it  in  his  rendition  of  the  legend. 
On  the  other  hand,   he   largely  suppresses  the 


74 

trial  scene,  wherein  is  sought  to  be  established 
the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  man  and  woman, 
the  dramatis  personae  of  the  story.  Holinshed 
gives  in  full  the  arguments  of  the  sheriff,  the 
priest,  and  the  shepherd's  child,  together  with 
the  reasoning  of  the  king,  when  pronouncing 
the  verdict  of  the  man's  justification  and  the 
woman's  guilt.  Browning,  however,  noting  the 
woman's  disparaging  criticism  of  her  dead  chil- 
dren, and  coupling  this  with  the  fact  that  she  is 
alive  and  her  children  are  dead,  passes  over  all 
intermediate  reasoning;  he  calls  for  no  proof  of 
her  guilt,  finally  and  conclusively  established  as 
it  is  to  him,  from  the  evidence  of  her  savage, 
weak,  and  unwomanly  nature. 


LINES   TO    LAKE    GENEVA 


LINES   TO    LAKE    GENEVA 

Words  attributed  to  Nathaniel  K.  Fairbank.     Music 
by  Frederick  W.  Root. 

Nestled  amid  thy  circling  bluffs, 

Thy  banks  all  clad  in  palest  green, 
In  May,  when  first  I  visit  thee, 

And  view  thy  waters'  silvery  sheen, 
The  springtime's  breath  is  in  the  air. 

The  trees  pulsate  with  newborn  life, — 
I  say,  some  other  months  are  fair. 

But  May  is  first  in  friendly  strife. 
The  grass  is  green  upon  the  hills. 

The  lawns  are  bright  with  daffodils; 
All  things  new,  sweet,  and  fresh  are  here. 

And  May  is  queen  of  all  the  year. 

Time  runs  his  course  and  ushers  in 
The  ever-welcome  month  of  June; 

The  perfume  of  uncounted  flowers. 
The  melody  of  birds  in  tune 

77 


78 

The  richer  verdure  of  the  trees, 
The  balmy  air  by  day  and  night, 

Combine  to  pleasure  every  sense, 
And  make  a  scene  of  pure  delight. 

I  say,  of  months  the  year  has  known, 
June  is  unrivaled  and  alone. 

I  leave  the  city's  stifling  glare, 

When  fierce  July  its  advent  makes. 
And  seek  thy  shores,  forever  fair. 

Oh  smiling  Queen  of  all  the  lakes. 
The  summer's  breath  is  tempered  here, 

The  languors  of  this  summer  sea 
Drive  every  grief  and  care  away. 

And  make  all  hours  from  trouble  free. 
I  say,  for  pure,  luxurious  rest, 

July,  of  all  the  months,  is  best. 

Soon  Autumn  mirrors  in  thy  breast. 
The  glories  of  October  hours. 

The  crimson  splendor  of  the  trees, 
The  golden  beauty  of  the  flowers. 

Fringed  gentian  and  the  goldenrod, 
In  the  bright  sunshine  fleck  the  sod. 


79 

Each  month  to  thee  new  vesture  brings, 
October  bears  the  robes  of  kings; 

All  vestments  else,  severe  or  gay, 
Are  unto  these  as  night  to  day. 

The  year's  drear  close  is  drawing  nigh, 

December  comes  with  stormy  sky; 
The  feathery  snow  falls  flake  by  flake 

Upon  the  bosom  of  the  lake. 
Pearl-bordered  are  the  tinkling  rills, 

And  ermine  clad  are  all  the  hills. 
No  other  month  has  seemed  to  me, 

Type  of  such  stainless  purity. 
Each  passing  month  has  lessons  taught, 

Each  has  its  pain  and  pleasure  brought, 
But  the  year's  ending  is  sublime — 

December  is  the  gem  of  Time. 

As  some  fair  maiden,  coy  and  sage. 
The  daughter  of  a  golden  age, 

The  radiant  queen  of  all  the  earth. 
Which  glories  that  it  gave  her  birth; 

As,  smiling,  she  the  most  doth  shine; 
As,  pensive,  is  still  more  divine — 


8o 

Whate'er  emotion  marks  her  brow, 
Or  thrills  her  happy,  loving  breast, 

Her  reign  's  an  ever-present  now, 
And  every  hour  her  regal  best. 

So  Thou,  Lake  of  my  constant  love, 

To  praise  alone  my  tongue  can  move. 
Spring  brings  its  freshness  and  its  showers, 

Summer  its  wealth  of  leaves  and  flowers; 
Autumn,  with  splendors  never  told, 

Decks  thee  in  crimson  and  in  gold; 
And  winter  robes  thee  all  in  white, 

Adorns  with  pearls  and  crystals  bright — 
Each  month  is  perfect  in  its  time, 

And  every  day  thy  golden  prime.* 


When  Put  and  Call  and  Bull  and  Bear 
Furrow  the  brow  and  blanch  the  hair; 

When  wheat  a  ten-cent  drop  has  had, 
And  lard  is  going  to  the  bad; 

*Mr.  Fairbank  states  that  this  ode  was  written  at  his  Lake 
Geneva  home,  except  the  final  stanza,  which  was  produced  after 
his  return  to  Chicago,  thus  accounting  for  the  different  spirit 
which  pervades  the  closing  stanza. 


8i 

When  "  Fairy  "  soap  no  more  will  sell, 

And  Kirk  all  round  is  raising  hell; 
Behind  I  leave  the  city's  roar, 

And  seek  thy  sweet  and  tranquil  shore; 
And,  floating  on  thy  silvery  breast, 

I  taste  the  joys  of  heavenly  rest. 
And  let,  if  you'll  excuse  the  slang, 

The  Board  and  all  the  Boys  "go  hang.'* 


HEROISM    COMMEMORATED 


HEROISM    COMMEMORATED 

Address  delivered  at  the  unveili?ig  of  the  monu- 
ment erected  in  Haymarket  Square,  Chicago, 
in  commemoration  of  the  heroic  acts  of  the 
police  force  when  attacked  by  a  mob  of 
anarchists,  May  4,  1886.  Monument  un- 
veiled May  JO,  i88g. 

May  4,  1886,  was  a  gloomy  day  in  our  history. 
Turbulent  acts  had  occurred  at  several  points 
within  the  city,  and  in  the  evening,  upon  the 
spot  where  we  are  standing,  was  an  excited  mul- 
titude listening  to  inflammatory  harangues.  A 
body  of  police  came  upon  the  ground  to  guard 
against  possible  disorder;  a  bomb  was  exploded; 
pistols  were  fired;  blood  was  shed;  lives  were 
lost;  the  crowd  was  dispersed  and  order  was 
restored.  One  of  the  consequences  of  this  inci- 
dent is  the  assemblage  here  to-day  and  the  dedi- 
cation of  this  monument.  Had  the  occasion, 
85 


86 

however,  been  simply  a  conflict  between  the 
guardians  of  public  order  and  an  ordinary  mob 
the  occurrence  would  have  deserved  and  would 
have  received  no  such  commemoration  as  this 
day  has  brought  forth.  It  is  because  the  out- 
break and  consequent  events  represented  a  con- 
flict of  ideas  and  principles  that  it  became  a 
matter  of  world-wide  interest  and  formed  an 
epoch  in  the  history  of  Chicago  and  the  Nation. 
Four  hundred  years  ago  the  Supreme  Being 
is  represented  by  Emerson  as  saying,  through 
the  discoveries  of  Columbus: 

"  Lo,  I  uncover  the  land 
Which  I  hid  of  old  time  in  the  West, 
As  the  sculptor  uncovers  his  statue 
When  he  has  wrought  his  best." 

Here  was  a  new  continent,  unhampered  by 
traditions  or  royal  lines,  where  man  might  hope 
to  work  out  new  theories  and  methods  of  gov- 
ernment which  should  work  for  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  people.  The  highest  achieve- 
ment of  civilization  consists  in  securing  to  every 
man  the  fruits  of  his  labor  and  the  freedom  to 
labor  and  to  sell  his  labor  or  ability  in  whatever 


87 
way  he  deems  most  to  his  advantage.  Some 
form  of  government  is  indispensable,  and  that 
government  is  best  which  least  interferes  with 
the  individual  and  which  takes  from  him  for  its 
support  the  smallest  percentage  of  his  earnings. 
The  more  advanced  nations  of  the  Old  World 
are  still  burdened  with  vast  national  debts, 
mostly  incurred  for  the  founding  or  upholding 
of  certain  dynasties,  or  for  other  matters  in 
which  the  people  have  no  interest.  They  are 
burdened,  too,  with  the  support  of  standing 
armies,  in  which  a  large  proportion  of  the  active 
young  men  of  each  nation  are  compelled  to 
serve  for  the  best  years  of  their  lives,  substan- 
tially without  compensation,  and  are  supported 
in  idleness  by  taxes  laid  upon  the  remainder  of 
the  people. 

These  oppressions  are  so  great  that  we  witness 
and  have  witnessed  for  a  generation  past  con- 
stant emigration  from  those  countries  to  this 
favored  land,  where  the  newcomers  realize  that 
they  are  freed  from  the  crushing  burdens  resting 
upon  them  in  their  fatherlands.  The  colonial 
period  of  our  history  represents  the  boyhood  of 


88 

the  Nation.  For  nearly  two  centuries  our  ances- 
tors were  putting  off  the  traditions  and  limita- 
tions which  they  had  inherited  from  the  peoples 
and  dynasties  of  the  Old  World.  They  came 
of  age,  won  their  independence,  and,  one  hun- 
dred years  ago,  organized  the  first  Government 
by  the  people  and  for  the  people,  of  continental 
magnitude,  which  the  world  had  known. 

Would  the  experiment  be  successful?  Could 
a  people  govern  themselves  when  spread  over  a 
continent  with  varying  climates,  conditions,  and 
industries?  These  were  the  questions  to  be 
answered.  We  ourselves  answered  them  one 
month  ago  this  day  by  a  jubilee  from  Maine  to 
the  far-off  coast  of  Oregon;  by  rejoicings  which 
were  participated  in  not  alone  by  our  own  people, 
but  by  the  lovers  of  liberty  in  all  lands;  by 
praise  to  Him  who  holds  in  His  invisible  hand 
the  destinies  of  men,  in  a  paean  which  followed 
the  sun  in  its  course  around  the  earth,  and 
ascended  in  world-wide  chorus  from  every  con- 
tinent and  from  the  islands  of  the  sea.  But 
these  same  questions  were  answered  in  the  nega- 
tive  by    the    political   writers   of  all  the    older 


89 

nations,  who  insisted  that  a  government  by  the 
people  could  never  be  maintained  except  in  a 
small  nationality  and  among  a  homogeneous 
people.  They  said,  in  so  vast  a  country,  the 
interests  of  some  States  would  be  maritime; 
some,  commercial;  some,  agricultural;  some  in 
the  line  of  manufacturing.  They  predicted  three 
sources  of  fatal  weakness  in  our  Government; 
that  diverse  interests  in  a  wide  continent  would 
cause  certain  States  to  ally  themselves  with  for- 
eign nations  in  case  of  a  foreign  war;  that  a 
civil  war  would  destroy  our  people  from  conflict- 
ing interests  among  the  States  themselves;  and 
that  if  the  country  survived  these  trials  the 
growth  in  wealth  and  population  would  give 
rise  to  classes  and  a  servile  war. 

The  test  of  our  experiment  went  on.  We 
passed  through  wars  with  foreign  nations  tri- 
umphantly, and  the  first  question  was  settled. 
Twenty-eight  years  ago  came  the  test  of  the  sec- 
ond question,  the  sectional  strife.  Many  among 
us  can  remember  how,  for  the  integrity  of  the 
Great  Republic,  a  million  peaceful  citizens  left 
their  homes,  took  up  arms,  and  went  forth  to  do 


90 

battle  that  government  by  the  people  might  not 
perish.  We  remember,  too,  how  scarcely  a 
household  in  the  broad  land  but  was  a  house  of 
mourning;  how  saddened  millions,  crape  clad, 
bewailed  the  slaughter  of  husbands,  fathers, 
lovers,  sons;  how  every  great  river  flowed  sol- 
emnly onward  to  the  sea,  red  with  the  dearest 
and  costliest  blood  of  the  Nation.  Government 
by  the  people  came  forth  from  the  conflict 
strengthened  and  with  a  new  and  abounding 
life. 

But  with  the  rapid  growth  of  the  Nation  in 
wealth,  prosperity,  and  population,  with  the  ag- 
gregation of  a  miscellaneous  people  in  our 
large  cities,  came  the  test  of  the  third  warning 
of  the  prophets  of  evil.  Differences  described 
by  the  absurd  phrase,  "  The  conflict  of  capital 
and  labor,"  assumed  momentous  importance. 
Well-meaning  people,  troubled  by  the  broad 
disparity  in  conditions  of  life,  which  thus  far 
seems  inseparable  from  our  imperfect  humanity, 
were  joined  by  dangerous  and  criminal  dema- 
gogues who  denounced  the  existing  order  of 
things,  and  even   clamored   for   the  destruction 


91 
of  all  government.  The  right  of  revolution, 
whereby  a  majority  of  the  people  modify  or 
overturn  one  form  of  government  and  substi- 
tute another  therefor  is  sacred.  But  this  princi- 
ple affords  no  protection  to  the  enemies  of  all 
government;  to  the  apostles  of  anarchy  and 
disorder.  A  government  instituted  and  carried 
forward  by  the  people  themselves,  and  deriving 
all  its  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed 
should  be  modified  only  by  the  methods  of 
peace,  by  laboring  for  a  change  in  public  opin- 
ion, which  is  prompt  to  remedy  a  proved  evil. 
Under  a  government  by  the  people,  any  man 
who  takes  arms  in  his  hands  and  goes  forth  to 
commit  deeds  of  violence  for  the  purpose  of 
remedying  what  seems  to  him  an  unjust  law; 
any  person  who  counsels  such  acts  of  violence 
and  advocates  measures  which  may  lead  to  the 
shedding  of  blood  is  simply  a  murderer,  an  out- 
law, an  enemy  of  mankind,  and  one  who  puts  in 
peril  all  the  precious  heritage  of  our  one  hun- 
dred years  of  national  life.  Our  country  stands 
to-day  the  sole  guardian  of  all  that  is  most  val- 
uable of  the  results  of  human  endeavor.     It  is 


92 

the  trustee  for  the  human  race  of  the  principles 
of  free  government,  of  the  right  and  power  of 
the  people  to  govern  themselves,  of  the  right  of 
freedom  in  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  won 
through  uncounted  ages  of  struggle  and  of  toil. 
No  portion  of  the  civilized  world  will  relapse 
into  a  condition  of  anarchy.  Some  form  of 
government  will  exist.  If  a  government  by  the 
people  is  not  sufficiently  strong  and  vital  to  pre- 
serve the  public  order,  to  protect  human  life, 
and  to  assure  to  its  subjects  the  safe  possession 
of  their  own,  a  strong,  central  government  will 
necessarily  be  established.  With  this  will  come, 
should  such  a  necessity  be  forced  upon  us  as  a 
people,  the  standing  armies,  the  oppressive  tax- 
ation, and  the  burdens  grievous  to  be  borne,  to 
escape  which,  ourselves  or  our  ancestors  left 
homes  in  the  Old  World,  sacrificing  much  that 
was  most  dear  and  precious,  to  aid  in  founding 
and  perpetuating  a  government  by  the  people. 
Those  who  would  sanction  courses  which  would 
make  such  results  possible,  claim  to  be  actuated 
by  sympathy  for  the  laboring  poor,  but  upon 
these  same  people  would  fall  the  greatest  bur- 


93 

dens  of  the  changed  affairs.  From  among  them 
come  the  men  who  make  up  the  great  armies  of 
the  Old  World.  It  is  their  blood  which  is 
poured  out  like  water  in  times  of  war.  They, 
above  all  others,  are  interested  in  the  preserva- 
tion of  peace  and  order.  It  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  apostles  of  anarchy  do  not  propose  a 
modification  of  existing  laws  and  institutions, 
but  a  wholesale  destruction  by  violence  and  a 
throttling  of  all  law.  History  would,  as  always, 
repeat  itself;  violence  would  beget  violence,  and 
crime  would  beget  crime.  All  the  powers  and 
forces  of  evil  would  come  again  and  inaugurate 
anew  the  reign  of  Chaos  and  Old  Night. 

There  is  an  expression  we  often  hear  in  the 
discussion  of  social  problems,  "The  laboring 
classes,"  which  has  no  place  in  America.  We 
all  belong  to  the  laboring  class.  We  have  no 
other  class.  We  all  labor  in  our  various  ways. 
The  millionaires  of  thirty  or  forty  years  hence 
will  be  men  who  are  now  working  for  a  dollar 
or  two  per  day,  just  as  the  millionaires  of  to-day 
are  men  who,  thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  worked 
for   fifty  and  seventy-five  cents   per  day.     We 


94 

have  rich  men  and  poor  men,  but  there  is  a 
constant  passing  from  one  class  to  the  other, 
and  the  door  is  always  open.  This  fact  is  the 
reason  why  the  evil  prophecies  of  the  Old 
World  sages  have  come  to  naught.  They  ranked 
our  laborers  with  the  Helots  of  Greece,  the  rab- 
ble of  Rome,  the  serfs  of  Russia;  people  for 
whom  the  future  held  no  gleam  of  hope. 

Upon  this  spot,  three  years  ago,  it  was  demon- 
strated that  the  new  peril  which  had  arisen  to 
the  government  by  the  people,  was  naught  in 
the  presence  of  a  public  sentiment  as  omnipo- 
tent as  it  was  sublime.  Certain  people,  mostly 
foreigners  of  brief  residence  among  us,  whose 
ideas  of  government  were  derived  from  their 
experience  in  despotic  Germany,  sought  by 
means  of  violence  and  murder  to  inaugurate  a 
carnival  of  crime.  They  took  advantage  of  a 
time  of  agitation  among  honest  workingmen 
and  sought  to  commit  them  to  their  infernal 
scheme.  It  is  worthy  of  note,  however,  that 
among  the  heroes  who  periled  their  lives  to 
thwart  the  conspiracy  of  these  criminals,  while 
some  were  Americans  to  the  manor  born,  many 


95 

were  men  who  had  come  to  us  from  lands  be- 
yond the  sea,  who  sought  among  us  that  free- 
dom to  the  preservation  of  which  they  conse- 
crated their  lives;  sons  who  loved  the  land  of 
their  adoption  with  a  passionate  loyalty  and 
devotion. 

It  is  to  the  glory  of  Chicago  that  the  enemies 
of  public  order  were  as  chaff  before  a  consum- 
ing fire.  The  civil  authorities  were  represented 
by  a  police  force  of  unexcelled  heroism;  by  a 
detective  force,  which,  under  Bonfield  and 
Schaack,  laid  bare  all  the  details  of  an  infamous 
conspiracy;  by  a  prosecuting  attorney,  whom  no 
intimidations  could  swerve  from  the  path  of 
duty;  by  a  judge,  who,  undaunted  by  threats, 
held  aloft,  with  an  even  poise,  the  scales  of  jus- 
tice; by  a  jury  of  the  people,  who  saw  clearly 
and  well  the  vital  principles  which  lay  behind 
the  overt  acts.  All  these  instrumentalities  illus- 
trated that  government  by  the  people  was  tri- 
umphant, and  equal  to  any  emergency.  The 
voice  of  all,  rich  and  poor  alike,  has  spoken 
with  no  uncertain  sound  of  its  adherence  to  the 
principles  of  peace  and  of  its  utter  condemna- 


96 

tion  of  those  who  would  resort  to  methods  of 
violence  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  fancied 
good. 

There  are  crises  in  the  world's  affairs  when 
immortal  fame  comes  in  a  single  hour  to  those 
whom  opportunity  has  blest.  The  heroes  who 
made  up  the  little  group  of  embattled  farmers, 
which  stood  in  the  highway  at  Concord  and 
fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world,  were  no 
whit  braver,  nor  more  loyal  than  thousands  of 
their  compatriots  in  the  old  Bay  State;  but  it 
was  theirs  to  inaugurate  the  struggle  which  re- 
sulted in  the  birth  of  a  Nation,  and  the  echoes 
of  that  firing  shall  never  die  away, 

Greece  could  have  furnished  numerous  bands 
of  300  men  equally  brave  and  patriotic  as  that 
of  Leonidas;  but  the  heroism  of  this  Spartan 
band,  whose  fortune  it  was  to  stand  in  the  pass 
at  Thermopylae,  and  to  check  the  mighty  flood 
of  Oriental  barbarism,  which,  under  Xerxes, 
sought  the  life  of  Grecian  civilization,  by  this 
happy  chance  shall  live  forever, 

•*  Where  breath  most  breathes,  even  in  the  mouths  of 
men." 


97 

We  stand  to-day  upon  another  spot,  which  a 
crisis  in  man's  progress  has  made  historic. 
Three  years  ago,  May  4th,  an  excited  audience 
was  here,  listening  to  speakers  who  counseled 
acts  of  violence  and  crime.  A  force  of  police- 
men, under  the  command  of  the  gallant  Bon- 
field,  a  name  long  to  be  remembered  and  hon- 
ored, came  forward  as  guardians  of  the  public 
peace.  The  entire  force  consisted  of  seven 
companies  under  the  command  of  Captains 
Bonfield  and  Ward,  each  company  commanded 
by  its  own  Lieutenant,  and  the  seven  compa- 
nies containing  in  all  176  men.  Five  compa- 
nies, those  of  Lieutenants  Quinn,  Steele,  Stan- 
toi^.  Bowler,  and  Hubbard,  our  present  efficient 
Chief,  and  numbering  in  all  120  men,  were  in 
the  advance.  Close  behind  were  the  companies 
of  Lieutenants  Penzon  and  Beard.  They  halted 
and,  in  the  name  of  the  law,  commanded  the 
riotous  assemblage  to  disperse. 

Suddenly,  and  without  warning,  the  fatal 
bomb  was  thrown  into  their  midst,  followed  by 
a  discharge  from  revolvers  in  the  hands  of  the 
mob.     Sixty-seven  men  from  the  force  in  an  in- 


98 

stant  were  killed  or  wounded.  In  a  conversa- 
tion with  a  gallant  officer,  who  had  served  with 
distinction  through  the  War  of  the  Rebellion, 
he  stated  that  he  had  never  known  or  heard  of 
an  instance  where  so  large  a  proportion  of  an 
attacking  force  had  been  disabled  without  re- 
sulting in  its  demoralization  and  retreat.  But 
no  such  thought  entered  the  minds  of  the  brave 
heroes  of  the  Hay  market  horror.  The  echo  of 
the  explosion  had  scarcely  died  away  when  the 
voices  of  Bonfield  and  Fitzpatrick  rang  out  like 
a  clarion,  rallying  their  men  to  the  unequal 
combat.  Under  the  constant  fire  of  the  mob 
the  lines  were  formed,  the  charge  was  made 
upon  ten  times  their  number,  and  the  crowd 
was  dispersed.  Every  policeman  who  was  in 
the  affray  was  a  hero;  every  man  had  in  him 
the  material  of  which  are  made  martyrs  in  the 
cause  of  duty. 

One  company — that  of  the  heroic  Lieutenant 
Stanton,  where,  out  of  eighteen  men,  one  was 
instantly  killed  and  sixteen  were  wounded — 
rallied  immediately  and  was  at  the  front  in  the 
pursuit  of  the  retreating  rioters.    Equally  valiant 


99 

was  the  command  of  Lieutenant  Bowler,  where 
nineteen  out  of  twenty-six  men  were  wounded. 
It  were  vain  to  particularize  where  every  one 
present  earned  our  abiding  gratitude.  But 
there  were  certain  of  these  men  who  bowed  be- 
fore the  imperious  mandate  of  death — who  have 
been  borne  to  their  rest  in  the  equal  grave — 
whom  we  must  especially  bear  in  remembrance 
— Degan,  Miller,  Barrett,  Flavin,  Sheehan, 
Hansen,  Redden,  Sullivan  — martyrs  and  heroes 
all,  to  whom  the  municipality  renders  that  hom- 
age which  ennobles  death.  They  are  of  those 
whose  lives  have  been  given  to  preserve  the 
costly  treasure  of  free  government.  No  history 
of  our  State  but  will  perpetuate  the  memory  of 
those  murdered  heroes.  Impartial  fame  will 
have  them  in  her  jealous  care. 


PRINTED  BY  R.  R.  DONNELLEY 
AND  SONS  COMPANY  AT  THE 
LAKESIDE  PRESS,  CHICAGO,  ILL. 


.;   '-UrU_ 


krU.A 


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